


Dark as Blood

by Lorien, Saetha



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Angst, Awesome Howling Commandos, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Bucky and Peggy get along really well cause fuck love triangles for bad drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Torture, Pining, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Torture, World War II, the Howlies are the Best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-17 20:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16103180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorien/pseuds/Lorien, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/pseuds/Saetha
Summary: "How do you do it?" Steve finally asked, his voice brittle as he was trying to wipe his eyes dry. "How do you not break over and over again?" He was well aware that as a sergeant Bucky had seen, had commanded, more than his own fair share of death."I do," Bucky told him. "We all do. We just can't let the cracks swallow us whole."*Magic has always been a part of this world. Some have it, others don’t - and Bucky discovers early on just how destructive his own is. As much as he might hate his abilities, however, he will use them to keep first his family and Steve and then the entire Howling Commandos safe. Things get more difficult once they get thrown into the fray of war, but somehow they endure, the Commandos growing stronger as they grow closer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The time of posting had finally begun! I've been sitting on this for like half a year at least and am so glad to be sharing this with the world now. This is my contribution to the Captain America Big Bang 2018. Text is by me, art and beta by the amazing [Lorien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorien) (aka [drjezdzany](https://drjezdzanyart.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr), with further beta contributions by my usual partner in crime, [Ivana](http://captain-flint.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Like pretty much all of my fic ideas, this one is based on one of my weirdass dreams. Plot is similar to that of the movies (I'm currently planning a second part to this which will be a lot more comic based...) but with the added little bit of 'what if blood magic existed?'. A note on the blood magic: although it is in its purpose and process very different to self harm, this does involve cutting the skin for the purpose of obtaining blood (I was intentionally light on the description of this part). If you are triggered by this please be careful. 
> 
> Another note: yes I’m aware that this isn’t how the Howlies met, especially not Morita. But since it’s a) and AU and b) I was partially drawing from the comics rather than movie canon anyway (where things were…completely different)…MY WORLD MY RULES :P

Bucky did his first magic when he was six. It wasn't a conscious decision, not by far, but the bullies were mean to his little sister. When he had interfered, they had split open his bottom lip. His blood was dripping down on his hand and the wall behind him. He didn't know, but suddenly, it was simply _there_ inside his chest, a feeling of something hot and boiling and _ripping,_ and then part of the top wall came falling down; just a few stones, but enough to make the bullies cry and send them scattering.

Bucky had thrown himself over his sister as soon as it happened; he barely noticed the small gash on the back of his neck from the sharp edge of one of the falling stones. Becca was crying, and he tried in vain to comfort her, his hands trembling.

He never told anyone, not about the storm inside him, not about how the blood on his skin seemed to have disappeared afterwards, leaving behind an oddly-shaped bruise - and certainly not about how _good_ it felt when the power had surged through him. The memory almost made him sick. Doing something that ended up hurting people should not feel good.

Tucked away in small alleyways, however, he kept experimenting, making sure no one was watching. He found that he needed blood to work whatever it was that he was doing. That the more blood he used, the more he could do. That there was only a certain amount of the force inside him - once it was used up it took time to regenerate.

And that he could never create anything, only destroy. 

*

When he was seven, he met Steve Rogers.

On first sight, Bucky thought that Steve had to be someone's younger brother, scrawny and small as he was. He was surprised when the little kid sat down at the table next to him in class, an expression of determination on his face that reminded him of the way his sister looked when she tried to reach something on a shelf that was still too high up for her.

During their first lunch break, two bullies from the year above them started pushing some of the new school children around; Bucky couldn't even think about what and if he should do anything when a small human ball of indignant rage barreled into the two boys and sent them sprawling to the ground. Bucky just gaped as he saw Steve standing over them with blazing eyes, shaking a little and his hands balled into fists. It was only then that Bucky’s brain caught up with the situation.

_He's going to get his ass kicked._

The thought was as clear as day in his head, and before his brain could remind him that maybe this wasn't the greatest idea on earth for his own well-being, he found himself standing next to Steve, ready to take on the bullies and show them their place. He didn't even need to use his magic - the two boys seemed too intimidated by the fact that two first years were standing up to them to put up too much of a fight.

"That was pretty awesome. What you did, I mean." Bucky gestured slightly and grasped Steve's shoulder. Steve looked up at him and grinned before coughing a little.

"Had to, didn't I? Don't like bullies," he shrugged.

From that moment, they were inseparable.

*

When Bucky was nine, Steve got sick - worse than usual. For the first time since Bucky had known him, his Ma called the priest for last rites. Bucky’s mum had forbidden him from going over to the Rogers' place for fear that he'd catch the same bug, but after bedtime Bucky scrambled out of his window and rounded the corner to Steve's home anyway. It was harder getting into Steve's room, but after a moment he managed; with just the tiniest bit of dark magic, he could make the lock break and open the heavy wooden frame.

Steve's mum was asleep on the chair next to the bed, stirring only slightly when Bucky sneaked in. She had to be exhausted from staying up day and night with her son, trying not to see him die.

"Buck?" Steve's voice was barely more than a faint whisper.

"Yeah." Bucky slowly moved closer until he could kneel on the other side of the bed, opposite Mrs. Rogers. Steve looked terrible - pale and sweaty, and every single breath he took seemed to be rattling in his chest like someone had hidden a handful of coins in there. Bucky was almost too scared to touch him, fearing that, surely, Steve would come apart under his fingers. When he grasped Steve's  hand, he was surprised to find it cold and clammy to the touch. _Like that of a corpse already_ , he thought and shivered.

"Why're you here?" Steve was so palpably exhausted that the three words were all he could press out. Bucky wondered if he was hallucinating. He'd gotten the flu once and seen things that weren't there, or so at least his Ma had told him.

I don't know, he wanted to say. Because you are my friend and I didn't want you to suffer alone. Because I don't want you to die. Because...

"I'm here to help you." He knew it was true the moment he said it out loud. If his magic could destroy things, couldn't it destroy sickness as well?

"Help?" Steve looked slightly confused. However, whatever state the fever had put his mind in, Bucky coming to help seemed like a completely logical thing to happen.

"Just close your eyes, Steve," Bucky murmured. "Remember Coney Island and the ice cream last summer? That was fun."

"Yeah." Steve closed his eyes and smiled a little. Bucky grabbed his fingers more tightly, using a pair of scissors to prick his thumb on a part of Steve's skin. He was going to need quite a bit. Biting his teeth, he told himself that this was for Steve, that Steve would die if he didn't do this, until he finally thought he had enough blood.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Bucky muttered. He needed all his concentration for what he was about to do. "Close your eyes. You'll be fine."

Steve gave a small sigh, but he wasn't in much of a state to argue. His eyelids fluttered shut, and Bucky didn't know whether Steve had listened to him or was simply too exhausted to keep them open. He took a deep breath before closing his own eyes. He'd never done this before, had never had anyone show him how it worked, nobody who he could ask. The blood was burning on his skin, and he could _feel_ Steve through it, could feel the illness ravaging through his body and so many things in there that just seemed...wrong. But he'd never been able to fix things. He could only break them.

At least, he could make sure that it wasn't Steve who got broken.

Bucky woke up again hours later, his head pounding and his chest feeling like someone had dropped an anvil on it. He dimly noticed that he was lying in his own bed, although he had no memory of how he had gotten there - the last thing he could remember was somehow drawing the illness _out_ of Steve and into the only vessel he could find - himself.

That was probably why he felt absolutely terrible.

His movement woke up his Ma whose forehead was creased deeply in worry. She heaved a relieved sigh when she saw that Bucky was awake and reached out to touch his forehead, frowning.

"Ma?" Bucky still wasn't sure what had happened.

"What were you thinking, James?" _James._ She only used that name when she was sad or angry with him. Bucky wasn't sure what to answer, so he simply went with the truth.

"I didn't want Steve to die," he said slowly.

"It was nice of you to try and be with him, James, but I told you you shouldn't. And now look at you. Whatever Steve has, you caught it too. I don't think Stevie would be happy if he knew that you got ill because of him." His mother wrung out a cloth and carefully wiped his face and forehead. She seemed to catch what he wanted to say next.

"And yes, Steve's still alive. He's doing a lot better this morning, his mum said. But no more visits between you two until you're both healthy, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma," Bucky said obediently, but inside he was so relieved that he felt like a boulder just rolled off his heart. He was still in pain and feeling miserably sick, but it was okay. He could bear it for Steve's sake, no problem. Just as long as he survived.

Bucky sighed and wriggled himself a little deeper into his bedcovers whilst his mother made sure that he was comfortable. It would all be okay. _Steve_ would be okay. That was all that counted.

*

Bucky was eighteen when they moved in together.

With Steve’s mum gone and neither of them having enough income to support their own place, it seemed like a logical conclusion - and Bucky liked it better that way because it meant he could take care of Steve when he was sick again or had gotten hurt in another fight. It meant that he could make sure that Steve was warm in winter and had enough to eat and had a space that he could call home.

It also meant that he could draw upon himself whatever would have killed his friend otherwise.

Bucky reached a certain amount of practise in doing so. He wished he didn't have as many opportunities to try out his magic - black magic, dark magic, blood magic, whatever you wanted to call it - but he did, and every time it seemed to come a little more easily to him. It was almost frightening. He couldn't heal broken bones or make Steve healthy again, but he could share the burden, force the illnesses to break something else instead of Steve's body. Steve never noticed, and if he did wonder why Bucky always fell sick when he was miraculously doing better, he never said anything.

Whenever Steve didn't come home at his usual time, Bucky began to grow worried. Usually it was either because he had fallen ill throughout the day or had an asthma attack and was thus walking much more slowly; or it was because he was getting beat up in an alleyway again because he was too stupid to run away from a fight. Probably had provoked it in the first place, with the unique mixture of righteousness and a keen sense of justice that Bucky loved him for.

This time it was the latter.

It wasn't overly hard to find them - Bucky only had to walk part of the way from the place where Steve took art lessons in the evening whenever they could afford it until he heard the characteristic sound of flesh hitting flesh and suppressed grunts of pain. Bucky was running by the time he rounded a corner into a small alleyway. Steve was on the floor, although still moving, but all that Bucky could see was the blood seeping through the fabric of his jacket at the shoulder. He screamed in rage, throwing himself at the three guys who had been ganging up on Steve.

He managed to take one in the neck with his elbow before he could turn around, but the other two proved harder. Bucky fought with a wildness that surprised even him, snarling as he punched one of them in the stomach so he doubled over and fell to the ground. He took a fist in the side with a small grunt, could feel something inside him break but didn't care, not now when the fury was still surging through his veins. He retaliated by kneeing his opponent in the crotch and watching in satisfaction as he, too, went down, helping him along with another kick in the kidneys.

Bucky was breathing heavily, a sharp pain spreading slowly in his ribs where he had been punched earlier. However, none of it mattered when he looked down at Steve. He was still breathing, at least; but when Bucky called his name and gently shook his shoulders, there was no answer other than a small huffing sound.

"Steve!" Bucky didn't care that he was yelling. Something in Steve's breath sounded wrong, but he couldn't tell, even when he dripped some of his blood from his cut palm on Steve's hands to dive deeper. There were things wrong, but it wasn't an illness, and he didn't know what to _do_ -

 _I can't fix him_ , he thought, full of panic. _I can't fix him. He will die because I can't help him_.

He needed to get him home, get some help, no matter how much the doctor would cost. Steve was too important, he couldn't simply die because Bucky hadn't been there to protect him, had been too slow to find him. Bucky very carefully lifted Steve up, trying not to pay any attention to the burning pain shooting through his side. Broken rib, probably. He'd only gone a few steps when he heard a cough behind him.

"We aren't done with you two punks yet," a gravelly voice said as Bucky turned around. It was the one he had punched in the stomach earlier, now holding a knife and his eyes screaming murder.

He hurt Steve. That was all that Bucky was able to think. This bastard hurt Steve. And he was gonna hurt him worse if Bucky didn't do anything.

He shifted Steve's weight in his arms and then, without thinking, pressed his bloody palm onto the metal support of the stairs next to him. He couldn't see anything but red in front of his eyes, felt nothing but a burning anger, the desire to protect mingling with the desire to _hurt_. The magic inside him built, and Bucky had never done anything this strong before. As he screamed, he could feel his wrath flowing into the metal, weakening it, breaking it, an echo of his own agony.

The stairwell came down right as the guy lunged at him.

The crash swallowed Bucky's angry yelling, and for a moment he just stood there, gulping for air as his side began to scream in pain the moment the magic left him. It took longer for him to realise what he had just done, and once he did, he was barely fast enough to put Steve down before emptying out his stomach at the side of the alleyway. He didn't even want to look whether the three attackers were still alive. He was too scared of what he would find.

His entire body was shaking badly when he finally heaved himself upright again, picked up Steve and pushed his way through the first onlookers who had started to assemble on the street. A woman opened her mouth as if to say something, but one look at his eyes seemed to tell her better. Bucky thought he would scream if he had to say as much as a single word.

Thankfully, home wasn't far away; Bucky managed to get Steve there just in time before he himself collapsed. Only the thought that Steve needed more help than he did right now kept him together. Steve's heart was still beating, that much was good. Bucky carefully removed his shirt to see how bad his injuries were, but if he was honest to himself, he didn't even know where to start. He might know how to help with the most common illnesses, but this was something different. He needed a doctor. Which meant that Bucky would have to go out again to get Steve the necessary help.

His side was hurting fiercely by now, and even the thought of having to go outside made him feel sick to his stomach again. What if people recognised him? What if they _knew_? He could only imagine what they would be saying, the fingers pointed at him, the whispers of _murderer_ and _monster_. Bucky wrapped his arms around his chest, pressing against it to keep the pain and his growing panic inside. Looking at Steve wasn't helping - he was far too pale and still hadn't woken up.

If only his magic would actually be useful instead of wreaking nothing but damage.

Bucky did everything he could to make Steve comfortable before he took a deep breath. He _had_ to get help. His bloodied hand was still shaking and his side pounding when he finally stepped outside.

*

Two days later found them both back in their apartment again, nursing two cups of coffee that somehow managed to be both too thin and too strong. Steve was still in bed; he wasn't allowed to get up for at least another week or so the doctor had said. Bucky knew that Steve would've been up and about the same day if he’d been the one to decide. At least he was able to draw on a tray that Bucky had brought him, otherwise he’d probably have died of boredom already.

Bucky winced when he stood up to pour himself another cup. His ribs still hurt, and it hadn't become any better since the fight; especially since he couldn't really afford any painkillers for himself. They had barely been able to cover the costs for the doctor and medicines that Steve needed.

"Hey Buck, you okay?"

Steve was staring at him over the rim of his cup, brows creased slightly in worry and confusion.

"'m fine. Why?" Bucky yawned and tried to cover another wince when the decision immediately proved to be a bad one.

"You're...holding yourself weirdly. And you look like you're in pain," Steve pointed out. "And before you say anything, I know what that looks like. Can't fool me."

"Well, dragging your ass all the way here across Brooklyn makes even the best man's muscles sore," Bucky replied lightly.

Steve only frowned.

"It wasn't that far. And I can see that you're lying," he said mulishly.

Bucky turned the mug in his hands, not knowing what to say. He didn't want to make Steve worry, but he hated lying to him as well.

"I may have caught a punch or two during the fight," he finally admitted. "Nothing to worry about though. Just a little sore."

Steve was still frowning but didn't prod any further for now. Bucky was quite thankful for it - sympathy was the last thing he needed right now. Not after what he'd done. Maybe that was another reason why he had denied that anything was wrong when the doctor had asked - some part of him felt like he deserved this, every single moment of ache and pain as a sort of payment for the pain he'd caused in return.

"What happened to the ones who attacked us?" Steve continued to ask as if nothing had happened. "Mrs. Hoskins mentioned something about a stairwell coming down when she came by earlier?"

Bucky felt like said stairwell had just fallen onto him.

"Yeah it...it broke, apparently. Buried the three who attacked you underneath. Not sure if they survived or not," he said with a levity that he didn't feel. He purposely hadn't tried to find out what had happened to them. That way at least he could tell himself that he hadn't become a murderer.

"Oh." Steve looked down at his mug with a rather stricken expression. "That's...terrible. I hope they're alright."

"They almost killed you, Steve!" It was no use for Bucky to try and hold on to his calm any longer. "And you hope they're _alright_?"

Steve seemed rather taken aback at his outburst.

"Well. Uhm. Of course? I just hope this taught them a lesson not to try and rob defenseless people on the street again."

Bucky hid his face in his hands, trying not to scream.

"I don't think they cared even a tenth about your fate compared to how much you care about them. They might be dead or not, I don't care. All I care about is that you're alive."

"Bucky..." Steve's voice trailed off. Bucky wasn't sure whether he was just imagining the note of reproach in his voice.

"Stop! I'm sorry that I didn't go and check, okay! I'm sorry that I'll never be as good a person as you are, but you were unconscious and wasting away in my arms, and I didn't think and I-" Bucky hadn't even realised that he was yelling until he stood upright and the pain in his ribs reminded him that his chest was heaving. He spread his arms, looking helplessly at Steve. "I'm sorry, alright?"

He didn't even wait for a reply, didn't want to see Steve's disappointed face or the hurt in his eyes. Bucky grabbed his jacket and was out of the door within moments, pointedly ignoring Steve calling out after him. At least he was weak enough to stay in bed so he was unable to follow him, Bucky thought with a grim certainty that he immediately felt bad for. He didn't even know where he was going, just that he needed something to distract him right now.

He only realised where his steps had led him when he saw the sign over the door. Bucky’d been here a few times before, not that he would ever admit it; but tonight he felt himself drawn here as if by a magnet, not just a youngster looking for fun.

The bell chimed softly when he entered and a number of heads immediately swiveled his way as he entered. The attendants of the little bar only relaxed when they recognized his face. You always had to be careful with who was coming through the door here. Bucky threw a half smile into the round that earned him a few appreciative glances before walking up to the bar. The bartender eyed him with unbridled appreciation in his eyes.

“Hard day today?” he asked, pouring out his strongest whiskey without waiting for Bucky to prompt him. Bucky grunted, knocking the shot back in one go as he threw a few crumpled bills he had in his pocket. The bartender refilled his glass without asking.

“Terrible,” Bucky grumbled after he had downed the second shot as quickly as the first one.

“Trouble at home with your man?” The bartender nodded knowingly.

“He’s not my man, Tommy.” Bucky frowned, surprised at the anger colouring his voice. The bartender shrugged.

“Well, you do talk an awful lot about him,” he shrugged, quickly adding when he could see Bucky starting off on an angry retort: “It sure ain’t my business though, Buck. Whatever you say.”

“Damn right, it’s none of your business.” Bucky softened his words with another smile. Tommy’d always had a soft spot for his smile. Tommy only nodded and gave him a little wink before moving on to the next guest who had just walked up to the bar.

It took longer than Bucky would have liked for him to feel properly drunk. And unfortunately, being drunk didn’t ban either Steve’s disappointed face or the sound of the stairwell as it came down to bury three men underneath it from his mind like he’d hoped.

The man he fucked that night had short black hair and brown eyes; he was lanky and tall, taller than Bucky usually liked them, but then, he looked nothing like Steve and that was all Bucky wanted. The last time he’d gotten intimate with someone with blond hair and eyes the colour of Steve’s the wrong name had been on his lips, and he’d thought he’d die of shame. For a while Bucky managed to forget; managed to lose himself in the feeling of another man in his mouth, in the scraping of fingernails on flesh and the harsh pants echoing in the small stalls of the bar.

For a while.

*

Bucky had known it would come one day or the other. Ever since the war on the other side of the ocean had started, he’d known that at one point it would engulf them too. Now that he held the drafting letter in his hand, however, it was still unexpected. Knowing that something would happen and having it happen wasn’t the same after all.

“What’s that?” Steve looked up from where he had been sketching at the table.

“Oh. Nothing. The mail, is all.” Bucky held up the three letters in his hand, two unopened and one opened.

“What’s it say?” Steve frowned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve been drafted. Looks like you’ll have to do for a while without me.” Bucky smiled with a false cheeriness, trying to make light of the situation.

“Oh.” Steve looked down at his drawing again. “Oh, that’s great though, isn’t it? Means you can do your part to help those overseas.” _Unlike me_. The unspoken words were shimmering in the air around him.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.” Bucky was fully aware that he didn’t sound as enthusiastic as he maybe should have. Fact was that he would have been happy enough to stay here with Steve; he didn’t think that serving against the Nazis and helping in America’s war effort was a bad thing, certainly not, but he also knew that Steve needed him. And one man wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome of the war, but in this case it certainly would make a difference in Steve’s chances to survive. What if he got ill again with nobody to care for him? Or got into another fight and got himself killed?

“Do you know when you’ll leave yet?” Steve asked.

“I have to be at camp in three days. No idea when we’ll ship out though. Gives me a few days to get prepared at least.”

“That’s…pretty soon.” Steve swallowed. His gaze didn’t seem to be able to fix on one place; it kept wandering between his drawing pad, Bucky’s face, his hands and the rest of their apartment.

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence was all that could be heard for a moment. Bucky dropped the other two letters on the table before filling his mug from the teapot that was still warm on the stove. Then he sat down next to Steve, noting with a smile that Steve had been practicing how to draw folds in fabric by draping one of Bucky’s shirts over the chair.

“Steve?” he finally asked, slightly hesitant. The next words wouldn’t come easily to him.

“Yeah?” Steve looked up; for a single second, Bucky wanted to do nothing more than to kiss his lips and smooth out the frown on his forehead with his fingers.

“Do you…do you think you’ll be alright? Alone? I could ask Ma or Becca if they could look after you a little. You know, make sure everything’s fine, especially when you’re not feeling so well.”

“I’ll be alright, Buck. Really.” Steve smiled that big smile of his that always tucked painfully at something inside Bucky’s chest. He’d said the same thing the day they had returned from his mother’s funeral. “I’ll wait for you here until you come back.”

“You sure? I know Becca won’t mind. I’d feel better if I knew someone was looking after you. And don’t…lie on your forms again and try to enlist, alright? You know they won’t let you. You’re safer here.”

“I know they won’t let me,” Steve said angrily. “Although you just said I wouldn’t be that much safer here either. Really, Bucky, I don’t want to trouble your sister too much. I’m sure nothing bad’s gonna happen while you’re gone. Just make sure that you come back in one piece, alright?”

“Of course,” Bucky laughed and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “You know I’m always careful, right?”

Steve snorted, poking Bucky’s arm where there was a still healing scar from the last time he had gotten into a scuffle and his opponent had suddenly pulled a knife. Bucky had never told Steve that it had been because the man had called him a dirty queer and insulted Steve in the same breath.

“You’re the least careful person I know,” he said, shaking his head.

“Well, right back atcha.” Bucky gently poked him in the side. “I promise I’ll do my best, Steve. I’ll fight for you too.” And he would certainly make sure to tell his family to look after Steve when they could. He didn’t have anyone else after all.

“Thanks, Buck.” Steve smiled at him again and Bucky found himself trying to absorb every single detail of that smile, paint it in his memory so that he could take it with him for when he would need it the most.

Hell, but he didn’t want to leave.

*

Bucky took great care for no one to notice what he was capable of during basic training. Even when he was tempted to, he never used his magic or displayed too much of what he had learned during his boxing fights. He was far too scared that he would be discovered and even more scared that he would end up hurting people. The screams of the three men he had dropped the stairwell on were still resounding in his ears.

He kept away from most of his comrades beyond the usual interaction, too scared that someone would discover what he was capable of. There was only one exception – a young guy named Morita in his unit whose smile seemed almost too wide for his face and who always seemed to have another story or friendly quip ready whenever their unit needed it the most. A bout of influenza was sweeping through the camp, having killed dozens of soldiers already. It had only been a question of time until it reached their unit and when it did, the results were devastating.

Two of their companions died overnight before most of them had even realized what was happening, and the next morning found most of them sick and unable to leave their beds. Bucky had only caught a light sniffle and sore throat, but he was nonetheless sent into quarantine with all the others that showed even the slightest signs of illness. In the following night Morita seemed by far the worst off out of all of them, and there were whispers amongst the men that, surely, he would be the next one to die.

There was little sleep to be had in the infirmary even at the best of times, but Bucky was sure that most men were deep into their uneasy slumber when he left his bed and made his way over to where Morita was lying. Jim’s fever was so high that Bucky could feel it even without touching him. One last time he made sure that no one was watching and the nurses weren’t doing their rounds at the moment before he nicked his finger with the little knife he was carrying and pressed it to Morita’s hand.

He hadn’t used his magic in a long time, so the force flowing through him almost took his breath away. Now that he’d done it a few times with Steve, he knew what to look for; since Morita’s condition was usually robust enough, he only made sure to take enough away that he would definitely survive and not more. Bucky shuddered as the magic ran through him; he could already feel his fever rise as soon as Morita’s sank. But it wasn’t enough, not yet – there were other men here, others in his unit and their neighbouring ones who needed his help. Bucky worked tirelessly that night, taking only so much to make sure that as many men as possible would survive. He could feel his legs growing heavier and heavier with each bed that he visited, felt his forehead beginning to burn and his lips dry out, but he couldn’t stop. _Just one more_ , he told himself. _Just one more life saved, and then I’ll leave it be_. His fingers somehow didn’t seem to stop bleeding anymore, but he didn’t care.

 _Just one more_.

He forced himself to work his magic again, trying to squeeze out every single last ounce of it that he had left. It hurt; somehow it hurt more than ever before. He wasn’t even surprised when the ground rushed up to meet him.

*

Bucky woke up three days later, unable to remember much of what had happened. He felt as if someone had rolled him over with a tank once or twice and thrown him into a ditch for good measure. Opening his eyes seemed to require a lot more effort than it usually did.

“Guys, guys, he’s awake!” Morita’s voice seemed so loud in his ears that Bucky groaned slightly. The blurry image in front him slowly solidified into that of not only Morita but half of their unit, all gathered around his bed as if he was the youngest of their communal family.

“Ha?” He had wanted to say more, but his mouth was so dry that he barely managed to croak out the one word. Someone pressed a glass of water to his lips; when Bucky looked over, he was surprised to recognize Gabe Jones, another one of those who he had slowly grown closer to during training – and one of the last ones he had taken a bit of illness from before collapsing. He took a few sips of water and made a second attempt at speaking.

“What are you all doing here?” he asked. At least now his words were actually comprehensible.

“Waiting for you to wake up,” Dum Dum said as if it was the most natural thing of the world. He’d joined their unit only recently, but his moustache and voice were instantly recognizable. “You’re the last one left out of all us, and they won’t let us clear quarantine until you’re up too.”

“Ah.” Bucky frowned, looking around and then down at his own hands. His fingers were bandaged. If he concentrated on it, he could feel the quiet pulsating of healing wounds on them.

“We’ve no idea how you managed to bust up your fingers, but they found you passed out on the ground, and you just seemed to be getting worse even when everyone else was getting better,” Gabe explained. “So, well, we took turns looking after you a little. Can’t let our best sniper go to waste now, can we?”

The answering laugh almost got stuck in Bucky’s still too-dry throat.

“How many more did we lose?” he asked quietly.

“None of ‘em,” Dum Dum told him with a disbelieving tone. “Even the ones on death’s door somehow came back. The doctors and nurses were quite puzzled, I can tell you that. You were the only one who seriously looked like he might not make it for a while there.”

 Bucky let out a relieved sigh as he sank back into the pillows behind his back (noticing with amusement that a few members of his unit seemed to have pitched in some extra ones). It had been worth it, every single ounce of blood and taking the damage all upon himself. He looked at his bandaged fingers again with a small smile; for the first time since saving Steve from his latest bout of illness he felt like he could truly do some good in the world.

“Thanks for looking after me.” He nodded in the others’ direction. There were a few murmurs and some shuffling of feet, but the men seemed more proud than anything. In that moment, Bucky swore to himself that he would do whatever he could to keep them from more harm. As long as it was within his power, magical or otherwise, he would never give up.

*

From the moment that it emerged that Bucky was doing far better at basic training than anybody had expected, he carefully avoided thinking about why that might be the case; carefully tried not to ponder the fact that it might have something to do with the magic flowing through his veins. He never consciously used it to make himself better or increase his abilities; but the fact remained that he was just that one decisive bit faster, stronger and better at aiming than most others.

He hated it.

He wondered what Steve would think, how would he react if he knew that what Bucky seemed to be truly good at was killing people? He’d probably twist and turn the fact around, saying that it simply enabled him to do his duty better. Deep inside, however, Bucky knew that this wasn’t the case. Or at least not all of it.

Bucky still didn’t tell Steve about any of it, not even on the last days that he got to spend first with his family and then with him before they would be shipping out overseas. Steve’s entire face had lit up when he’d seen him coming through the door the evening before, and Bucky didn’t want to do or say anything to take that joy away.

“Bucky! I thought you were shipping out? Has anything happened?”

“I am.” Bucky smiled. Around Steve, smiles always seemed to come so easily to him. “But they gave us two days off before we left, and so I thought I’d come back for the night.”

“But don’t you want to visit your family?” Steve frowned. “I mean, not that I’m not happy to see you! I just-“

Bucky laughed, throwing his arm around Steve’s shoulders.

“Already have this morning. Thought I’d go and have a look to check that you haven’t been up to anything stupid in the meantime.”

At least Steve had the sense to look slightly ashamed at Bucky’s words. Even a single week without Steve getting into trouble would have been a miracle all by itself.

“…right.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Let me say that again: ‘I have to check that you didn’t get mortally injured in whatever stupidity you managed to involve yourself this time.’”

“Hey!” Steve defended himself. “I wasn’t that bad, alright? I just did what I had to. I didn’t get hurt. At least not badly.”

Bucky shook his head, but he didn’t pry further. Indeed, Steve looked about as healthy as it was possible for him to look, and he didn’t seem to be hiding any wounds. That was more than Bucky had actually expected, but he was glad. He’d probably never stop worrying about Steve when he was overseas, but at least he could be sure that Steve wouldn’t be caught in the wheels of war. He had the right spirit, probably more so than the vast majority of soldiers out there right now, but in his condition the war would devour him in no time. At least here Becca could check up on him from time to time and Steve wouldn’t end up facedown in a nameless ditch somewhere in Europe.

“You know what? We should go out tonight.” Bucky nodded towards the darkening sky outside. “I know a couple of dames who wanted to meet up. And I really, really want to see the flying car they promised at the Stark Expo. I’m sure they’d be happy to get to know you, too. And if they leave, we still have the flying car.”

Steve only laughed, not quite able to hide the note of nervousness in his voice. But of course he came with Bucky in the end; he always did. Bucky wondered whether it was because he genuinely enjoyed being out with him or out of pure necessity. He had never been able to understand why the dames didn’t seem to be as attracted to Steve as they were to Bucky; to him, Steve had always seemed like the perfect partner, someone who was worthy of all the attention and love anyone could give.

He remembered those thoughts when he found Steve in yet another alleyway later, about to get beaten up by two men and, of course, attempting to hold his own. There was a shine in his eyes when Steve looked at him that Bucky had always loved, a brilliant shimmer he hadn’t seen in anyone else in this world. How could others not see it? The warmth when Bucky put his arm around Steve’s shoulders always felt so right, as did the way Steve seemed to fit effortlessly into his side and how Bucky’s name and the word ‘jerk’ seemed to roll off his tongue even when they were arguing.

When Bucky looked at him, it finally seemed to become clear just what he was fighting for. To keep Steve safe he’d burn down an entire nation single-handedly if that was what it would take.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Zola and associated nastiness in this chapter.

Europe was muddy.

Bucky thought to himself that he should have a better word to describe an entire damn continent, but he didn’t. Wherever they went, there always seemed to be mud squelching beneath his boots, spattering and colouring everything until it was a uniform shade of grey and brown. With the mud came a dampness that never seemed to leave his boots and clothes no matter what he was doing; after a while of inactivity behind the front lines, Bucky was sure that his feet would likely fall off from boot root rather than ever being shot off by a German soldier.

 When the war finally found them, it was as swift as it was brutal. The 107th was stationed in a forest somewhere in northern Italy, tasked with holding some hill or another whose name Bucky had already forgotten. There was mud beneath their feet; of course there was. Bucky cursed quietly as he stepped from one leg to another, trying to bring some warmth into his limbs. Wasn’t Italy supposed to be warm? He had always heard that it was. A bloody injustice it was that they had been shipped to the southernmost parts of the Alps instead of the warmer coastal regions.

The Nazis were supposed to be somewhere further away, and their company had been stationed here as a fallback and safety measure to make sure that the line was being held. The words ‘ _were supposed to_ ’ still flashed through Bucky’s head when the first round of gunfire smacked into the tree next to him, raining bits of bark down onto his face. A quick look around showed him that the others of his company were in a similar predicament; young Jimmy Martens was lying on his back not far away, eyes staring sightlessly into the sky and his blood pooling beneath him to sink into the muck below.

“Jimmy!” That was Dugan’s voice shouting. Bucky realised only after a moment that his own shout had accompanied it. It was like whiplash; his own mind was still unable to comprehend how things could have gone so quickly from the relative peace of the forest to Jimmy dead on the ground and them all in mortal danger, without any warning that should normally have occurred. A danger that had only just begun as he finally started to realize.

It was difficult to see where the shots had been fired from; every time Bucky inched around the tree he was hiding behind another round of shots seemed to be immediately fired in his direction, all with remarkably good aim. Just how had the Nazis managed to close in so quickly with nobody noticing, not even the scouts they had sent ahead? As much as he strained, Bucky was unable to make out the shooters.

The order to retreat came quickly, even sooner than Bucky would have thought. He signaled with Dugan and Gabe, who were stationed closest to him, and slowly they managed to inch back bit by bit, always careful never to lose sight of where their enemy might be. Luck seemed to be with them, at least for the moment; there were no other casualties in Bucky’s general vicinity. They retreated up a steep hillside, in hopes that it would make it easier for them to finally see exactly where their enemies were and retaliate.

Bucky frowned as he stared down the hillside, fingers clenched around his gun and adrenaline thrumming in his ears. No matter how strongly he strained his eyes the most he was able to make out were shapes that somehow seemed far blurrier than they were supposed to be. Just what exactly had the enemy’s scientists been cooking up?

“Sergeant, can you see anything?”

“No, sir.”

Morrison, his captain, muttered angrily at that but evidently didn’t seem to have any better luck himself.

“The bastards have us almost surrounded,” he said quietly in Bucky’s direction. “Only a small ravine in the north is still clear. We will have to try and mount a distraction. I don’t know what happened to the other companies in the area, but it seems as if we cannot count on their help at all. You’ll take command of the men and lead them away, Sergeant. I will remain here with a small squad and follow once we are sure that you are in the clear. Understood?”

“Yessir.” Bucky took a deep breath, almost biting his tongue, knowing that questioning his superior’s orders was never a good idea, especially not during their first serious situation together. So was lying, probably. He took care to speak quietly enough that nobody else would be able to overhear their words. “Sir, if I may, I have a suggestion. Me and a few of my men have proven ourselves a good team before and have recently discussed and tested some…strategies for diverting attention away from the company. Sir. We would be honored to volunteer to remain behind in order to be of help.”

A flimsy lie – yes, they had talked about how to divert the Nazis’ attention before but never with concrete ideas like he had just suggested. Still, the moment Captain Morrison had talked about a diversion, he had known what to do.

“And what kind of plan would that be?” Morrison frowned. Bucky sighed, hoping he wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

“We will draw their attention with heavy fire and then bring down those rocks on them, sir.” Bucky pointed at a sheer cliff to his right that he had already noticed during their ascent. “We’ve…worked with explosives before. It should be no problem.”

“If you say so, Barnes.” Morrison still didn’t look convinced, but it was evidently a better plan than whatever he’d had in mind. “Do it. I expect you back with the company shortly.”

“Yessir.” Bucky saluted and signaled Gabe and Dugan to come over. He explained their part in the plan as well as he could as Morrison rounded up the others of the company and quietly gave them orders about what was to happen next. A small nod in Bucky’s direction and he led them away.

Bucky exchanged a glance with Gabe and Dugan before they all threw themselves to the ground and carefully advanced towards the edge of the small cliff until they had a good view of what lay below. Bucky cursed softly when he realized just how close the Nazis had come already; although still strangely blurry, their shapes had solidified by now, looking dark and menacing as if they were dressed all in black.

He nodded at the other two, and they carefully cocked their rifles, taking aim and attempting to take out one soldier after the other. Dugan whistled softly when Bucky’s first shot dropped one of the Nazis directly on the ground and he didn’t get up again. Bucky had always known that he was a fairly good shot, especially after enough practice, but even he was surprised. There wasn’t much time for pride, however, as more and more soldiers seemed to materialize from the trees below them, far more than they could ever hope to take out between them.

Bucky carefully put down his rifle and hoped he hadn’t overestimated his ability. A quick nick with his knife and he pressed his bloody palm onto the rock beneath him. It was steady and strong, but thankfully not as firm as he’d thought; the frost had loosened a few parts of the rock, and they would only require a small push to come loose. Bucky took a deep breath, checking that both Gabe and Dugan were still busy shooting and not looking in his direction, then closed his eyes. He could feel the magic building in his mind, ready to burst forth in the right places and sow destruction where it had to.

“Gabe, Dum Dum!” He called out when he was on the verge of bursting. “Let’s get out of here!”

He was beyond thankful when they didn’t question his orders but simply scrambled up and away as fast as they could. Bucky crouched, ready to run and praying that no bullets would hit him before he released the force in his mind. The rock underneath him cracked with the sound of dozens of fireworks going off at the same time, and before he knew it, his footing was gone, and he struggled desperately to throw himself forwards onto safe ground, fingers scrambling for purchase on the loose soil and roots.

 _I’m going to fall_ , he realized in a moment of endless panic. _I’m going to fall, and I’ll either die or they’ll take me prisoner, and there is nothing I can do about it._

_Becca. Steve. I’m sorry._

“Bucky!” Gabe’s hand appeared and closed itself around his wrist at the very last moment. “I got you, Bucky, I got you.”

Dugan appeared next to Gabe only moments later, and together they hauled him up onto the forest ground. For a single precious moment, Bucky did nothing but lie there with his eyes closed, taking deep breaths in relief. The sensation of falling, without anything to hold on to…it was nothing he ever wanted to experience again.

“Thank you,” he finally pressed out. “Thanks. That’s as close as I ever want to come to dying.”

Dugan patted his back with a laugh as Gabe grinned in his direction.

“Always,” Gabe said. “We couldn’t leave you behind now, could we?”

“Well, I’m glad for the sentiment.” Bucky grinned back, attempting to pat the worst of the muck off his uniform with little success as they crouched and slowly moved towards the north where Morrison’s ravine was supposed to be. Bucky hoped that the rockfall had been distraction enough to let everyone get away and they wouldn’t be pursued by a horde of very angry Nazis.

“How did you do it?” Dugan wanted to know as they made their way towards the ravine. “I didn’t even know you took explosives with you. Didn’t really see you set them up either.”

“Always got some on me, you never know when you’ll need them.” Bucky shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. He didn’t know what they would say if they knew about his secret, but he could bet that it wouldn’t be anything good. Dugan seemed placated for now, and Gabe didn’t say anything, although Bucky could feel that their suspicions hadn’t vanished fully. Well, there was little he could do about it for now. He just had to hope that they still trusted him enough to fight by his side.

*

Later he couldn’t remember anymore just when he started infusing his bullets with magic. He guessed that it was when he was tasked more and more with sniping and covert missions once his superiors noticed his skill with the rifle and his history of boxing had found its way to them.

The days began bleeding into each other, an endless series of muck and rain followed by a period of hot and dry summer, far dryer than Bucky was used to from New York. It was stifling, especially with his uniform, and Bucky caught himself almost wishing for the period of rain and dampness to come back. He found himself fiddling with his rifle and bullets during one of the endless periods of waiting. The cut on his hand, where he had helped a tree come down during a storm the night before to block the Nazis’ way, had broken open again, spilling a few drops of blood on the bullets in front of him.

He cursed slightly, lifting his hand to wipe the bullets clean. As soon as his fingers touched the cases, however, he felt a thrumming go through them as his magic seemed to resonate with the metal. Bucky shuddered, dropping the bullet. Perhaps more than any other object, bullets were designed to destroy and kill, and it filled his mouth with bile to know that this seemed to be what his magic reacted most strongly to.

Bucky moved on to the other parts of the rifle first, cleaning them and putting them back together before making another effort to pick up the bullets again. He forced himself to keep them in his hands, feeding just one tiny drop of magic into them. Nothing seemed to happen; no explosions, no strange color changes other than his blood having vanished from their surface. He frowned, then dropped them in his pocket, resolving to find out what they were doing when nobody else would be there to watch.

Of course, the call that they were needed came before he ever had the chance to test his bullets. The third evening found Morita, Gabe, Dugan and him sitting around the fire that they had built to ward off the chill of the night. Most others of their unit were already asleep, but the four of them had lingered, enjoying the descending silence on the camp. It was Gabe who finally broke the quiet.

"Have you heard of that Captain America who's apparently touring around representing the 'perfect soldier'?" he asked, rolling his shoulder slightly. Dugan snorted in response.

"Perfect soldier, my ass." He took another sip from his flask, then passed it around towards Bucky, who accepted with a grateful nod. "He looks like he can fight, sure, but we won't know until he punches some actual Nazis in the face, not just some third-rate stage actor like they say he does in his shows."

"Maybe they'll send him out to us one day." Bucky shrugged. He could care less about the entire Captain America thing - the only thing he sometimes wondered was what Steve would think about it. He'd probably be all up in moral arms about it, saying how a man like that would have the duty to go into battle and lend his superhuman abilities to those at the front. Bucky still hoped that Steve wouldn't succeed with his other probably multiple attempts to enlist. In a real war there wasn't a Captain America who would keep him safe.

"Nah, they wouldn't risk their precious symbol on an actual war," Gabe sneered. "No way that Captain America dude would show up here, unless he's doing a few more shows to 'boister the morale of the troops' or some shit like that."

"Do you think he'd be a great fighter though? I mean, with that physique...surely they taught him _something_ of war, no?" Morita wanted to know.

"Well, maybe. But I'd be surprised if he's even remotely as good a shot as our sergeant here is." He winked in Bucky's direction. Bucky hid his smile behind Dugan's flask before handing it over to Gabe.

"And I'd be surprised if he was even half as good at combat as you are," Bucky said to Gabe.

"Well, I hope they're gonna send him here now." Dugan grinned. "I guess he could probably learn a lot from you two about fighting properly."

Bucky just shrugged and laughed, exchanging a glance with Gabe.

"But seriously," Dugan said, taking up the thread of their conversation again. "Your shooting these past few days was stellar, Buck. You do anything to your rifle?"

Bucky shifted on his seat, thinking of the bullets in his coat pocket that he must have put into his rifle at some point. Dugan was right; not a single one of them had missed its mark, despite some of the shots seeming almost impossible to make.

"Not really. Tinkered a little with it, but nothing beyond that. Seems like I'm just exceptionally lucky at the moment..."

Gabe and Dugan both frowned at that, but neither of them refuted his statement. Bucky looked down to wipe some of the muck off his pants so he didn't have to meet their eyes.

"Well, let's just hope that your luck will stay with us. Looks like we're going to need it in the next few days." Dugan reached over to pat Bucky's shoulder with a smile. Bucky grinned back after a moment, snatching the flask again from his hands and trying to burn out the scratching that seemed to have taken up residence in the back of his throat.

*

They did indeed need it. And not only for the next few days but far longer than that - the Nazis continued to push at their lines with vicious force, barely allowing them to catch a break. The 107th was sent wherever they were needed most, oftentimes covering large stretches of land that left little space for talking but all the more time for brooding and thinking of the state back home.

He coughed a little as they tracked through yet another stretch of fresh mud that seemed to cling to their boots and made walking just that much slower. The scratching at the back of his throat had magnified into a burning pain in his chest whenever he took a deep breath - Bucky knew all too well what this signified since he had nursed Steve through more than one bout of pneumonia. He still hoped it would go away, however. There was nothing he could have done anyway to prevent it - his unit needed him and there was little to no medicine to be had out here. What little they had was needed for others more urgently than for him.

"You alright, Bucky?" Gabe walked up next to him, his brows creased in worry. "Your cough isn't sounding too good."

"I'll be fine." As if his traitorous body was trying to negate his comment, Bucky coughed again, this time so deeply that he had to stop and gulp down a few breaths to clear his swimming head before being able to continue.

"You don't look fine." Dugan came up on his other side, and Bucky threw an annoyed glance his way. He loved his friends, but he didn't _need_ their concern right now. It wasn't of use to anybody.

"Just a stupid cold." Bucky waved their attentions away, determinedly lengthening his stride. "It'll be gone in a day or two."

"Maybe you should rest for that one day or two," Gabe suggested. He seemed to be seriously worried, and Bucky felt guilty for lying when he looked into his honest eyes.

" _Right_ ," he said with more sarcasm than strictly needed. "Because the whole company is just gonna stop and wait for me to get better whilst the Germans overrun our lines. No way."

"I'm sure Morrison isn't going to mind. We could also send you back to base, for example," Dugan interjected.

"Come on you two, leave me alone." Bucky rolled his eyes, trying to suppress another bout of coughing. "It's just a bloody cold. Morrison doesn't need to know about it."

Both Gabe and Dugan looked very much like they doubted his words. Neither of them, however, continued the argument, although Gabe appeared as if he would have liked to. It was no surprise to Bucky that the two of them still stayed suspiciously close to him for the rest of the day, taking turns to watch over him with Morita. He had done exactly the same before, after all, when one of them had been wounded.

Of course, his cough didn't go away or get any better; the constant humidity in the air and the fact that none of them had been able to eat or clean themselves properly in weeks weren't helping. All of this ceased to matter, however, when they were pressed together in small, hastily dug ditches at Azzano, trying desperately to make out where the Germans were coming at them from in the darkness of the night.  

 There were screams around him as bullets rained down. And even though Bucky's own bullets flew true, there were far too many soldiers around them, seemingly coming from every direction. He and Gabe exchanged a desperate glance. Bucky saw Morrison charging ahead with a small company of men, attempting to reach another ditch in a better position; but amongst another hail of bullets, they all went down, laying on the ground unmoving. Bucky felt his thoughts freeze as he looked at the still shapes. _No-_

"Bucky!" That was Dugan shouting in his ear and shaking his shoulder. "Bucky, we'll have to withdraw! You're the commanding officer now; we have to get out of here!"

Bucky shook his head, trying to clear the buzzing in his feverish thoughts. Dugan was right. He _was_ the commanding officer now. He looked around, about to give the order to retreat when they could hear the deep rumble of something new approaching. It sounded like a tank, but the rumbling was deeper and somehow different. Bucky looked up.

"Fuck." His curse was echoed by Gabe and Dugan next to him as the giant monstrosity slowly emerged from the dark of the night. Whatever it was firing, it wasn't bullets - and once the blue beams hit their targets they dissolved, leaving nothing behind. The remains of Morrison and his small group were gone within seconds, as if they had never existed. There was no way they could ever run from this thing, especially since it didn't seem to be discriminating between friend and foe, firing at every one on the battlefield with indiscriminate fury.

Bucky looked over at Gabe and Morita again and then Dugan, followed by glancing around the rest of the company. Unless he could do the right thing...they would all die. Each and every single one, but not even his magic could help them. He'd never get close enough to the tank to be able to touch it. He closed his eyes, feeling another cough rise up in his throat.

"We'll have to surrender," he said as loud as he could, trying not to let the scratch in his throat break his voice. Looking around, he saw discouraged faces, but none of them actively resisted his word. "Surrender," he repeated again. "Otherwise we'll all die."

He realised that the men were all looking at him. Bucky took a deep breath, resisting the urge to massage his painful chest. He dropped the gun he was holding, putting his hands up in the air. Slowly, he began to stand up, praying that the Nazis would recognise what he was doing and not simply shoot him. A quick look to the side showed him that Dugan, Morita and Gabe were doing the same thing, quickly followed by the other men in their unit. The decision had been made; there was no turning back now.

He only hoped it was the right one.

*

"Bucky. Bucky, you need to get up."

Someone was shaking him by the shoulders. It was surprisingly hard to open his eyes - and even when he did, his surroundings seemed blurry and out of focus.

"Hu?" His tongue appeared to be sticking to the top of his mouth, dry as it was. It made it exceedingly hard to form any coherent words.

"You need to get up, Buck. The guards are coming around again. You know what's gonna happen if they think you aren't fit for work."

Bucky grumbled something unintelligible but heaved himself up nonetheless since they had all seen that the Germans’ threats certainly weren't empty ones. Even with Dugan's and Morita's strength helping him up, he still stumbled slightly, his sight swimming. He no longer pretended to be fine; nobody would believe him when he was like this anyway. Now the only prerogative he had left was to survive, at all costs. Just how much longer he could was up to debate though. He would never admit it in front of the others, but by now he had almost stopped believing that he would ever see the sun again. Unless a miracle happened.

"You sure you can make it through today?" Falsworth spoke up from the other corner of the cell, frowning. He wasn't looking too great himself; having been here the longest, he showed quite clearly what the poor rations and hard work were doing to everyone.

"Well. Not like I got a choice, do I?" Bucky flashed an empty smile at him, shaking off Dugan's and Morita's hands to prove that he could at least stand on his own. _One more day_ , he told himself. _I will make it through just one more day_. He had been repeating the same phrase in his mind for a week now. One day he truly wouldn't be able to get up anymore.

"That you don't." Falsworth sighed in agreement. In the one week since they had surrendered and had been brought here deep into the Austrian Alps to work in some kind of secret Nazi factory, the inmates of their cell had quickly formed a bond between them - if not quite a friendship yet, it was definitely a sort of camaraderie already. Speaking different languages and being from different countries didn't count much in the face of the Nazi's brutality, especially when they were all being forced to assemble their enemy’s weaponry.

The others were all doing the best they could to make sure that at least some of the weapons would malfunction when used, although rigid quality control made it harder and harder for them. Bucky had made sure to contribute his own share to it - a drop of blood and few inches of magic here and there, and he could ensure that at least the worst weapons that came through his hands would fail at the most critical moments. At least now his magic was good for something.

The fever was making his movements slow and sluggish, and more than once the overseer's threatening voice cut sharply through the air, chastising him for one thing or another that went wrong. Whilst the first one wasn't the worst of the bunch, the second overseer was known amongst all the workers to be of the most terrible kind - he seemed to have an utter disdain and hate for the people beneath him, not just the cruel indifference some of the other overseers displayed. Bucky could feel the worried gazes his friends were throwing it at him when he swayed on his feet racked by another bout of coughing; but gritting his teeth, he kept pushing the cart forwards that held all the ammunition shells he was supposed to transport.

He somehow managed to drag himself along until shortly after what was probably the lunchbreak for the overseers, before he lost his footing as one of his legs suddenly buckled underneath him and one of the cart's wheels almost rolled over the overseer's foot.

"Hey! Hast du keine Augen im Kopf?!" The overseer shouted at him, which Bucky's fever-addled mind just managed to translate into a question whether he didn't have any eyes to see with. He murmured something German underneath his breath, although it clearly wasn't loud enough for the Nazi. Bucky doubted that anything he could've said would've made an actual difference in the outcome; the overseer was definitely looking for an excuse to mistreat someone today. Before Bucky could reply, a boot hit him in the stomach, and he folded over, groaning and coughing.

He curled up into a ball to protect himself from the following blows, unable to hear the angry muttering of the other prisoners around him. Bucky wanted to trust that the overseer would stop before he died; but he wasn't quite so sure he would anymore, not after the second time a boot hit his unprotected neck and almost made him choke. He needed something to distract the overseer, something to bring down on him, something - he could feel his forehead bump against one of the many iron rods that held up the balcony above them.

Memories flashed through his head; of a time when he and Steve had been younger, of three bullies beating up Steve, and him, in his mindless rage and fear, bringing down an iron stairwell on their heads. It seemed so similar and yet so different to what was happening now. He reached out, his fingers already bloodied, and used the last of his energy to send a spark of magic through the iron structure. What he hadn't seen was the man standing on a balcony at the edge of the room, turning his head to look at him right when he used his magic.

White noise seemed to fill his head, drowning out every sound for the moment. He only knew that, somehow, the kicks in his direction stopped and that something heavy fell down next to him, one iron railing crushing his arm as he wasn't fast enough to pull back. But even that pain seemed very far away.

The next thing he was aware of was the feeling of being dragged by his healthy arm, and the buzzing of voices around him. Bucky opened his eyes, trying desperately to focus on the shapes around him. Everything seemed to hurt, and he wasn't sure he could form coherent words any longer, but whoever was dragging him seemed to make no effort to stop in their tracks.

"Shhhh." Gabe. That was Gabe's voice, as a part of his brain that wasn't too busy being confused and in pain noticed. "Try not to draw too much attention to yourself. They're giving us the rest of the day off to fix all the damage, but I wouldn't count on them being nice to you after what just happened. It was hard enough to drag you away without anyone noticing."

They reached the prison cells shortly after, and Bucky found himself unable to do much more than curl up on one of the blankets in the corner, shivering and his head still swimming.

"What happened?" he finally thought to ask.

"Well..." Gabe began, exchanging a glance with Dugan. "Somehow the balcony right above the asshole kicking you came down, breaking your arm and probably knocking you out in the process. He was still alive, but Falsworth and I...well, let's just say that in all the confusion we made sure he wouldn't hurt anyone ever again. After that everyone was shouting and running around, and we were told to go back to our cells. Dragged you with us right when they started looking for the prisoner who they thought had started it all. Not sure what's gonna happen now, but I bet it won't be all too pleasant."

"Well, whatever it is, we won't let them get at you," Dugan said angrily, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Maybe we're lucky and they'll just lower our rations and force us onto an extra shift tonight."

"Right," Morita snorted. "And tomorrow we're gonna get cake and flowers. Ain't gonna happen."

Dugan opened his mouth to an angry retort when the door to the prisoner's cells swung open and a troupe of Nazis came marching through, surrounding a smaller man in their middle whose appearance caused angry and fearful mutterings amongst the prisoners.

"Now?" Falsworth whispered. "Didn't they just take their last one this morning?"

They had, and of course the man had never returned, like all the others they had been dragging off. Normally the small man, Doctor Zola as Bucky had once heard him referred to in German, walked up and down the prison cells mustering each man before he made his choice, but now he didn't even slow down when he walked past the other cages. Until he came to the one Bucky was in, that was. Dugan sucked in a sharp breath, falling into a fighting stance next to the others as Zola stared at them.

"Bringt mir den, der hinten in der Ecke liegt," he finally said in German. _Bring me the one who's lying in the back_. Bucky tensed, trying to draw himself up onto his knees by the sheer power of will. They wouldn't take him lying down, or kneeling. He wouldn't go quietly.

"Step aside, prisoner," one of the Nazis snarled in broken English, squarely pointing his gun at Dugan's chest, who had crossed his arm and was standing in front of Bucky. "I won't ask again."

It was in that moment that Bucky knew there was no way to avoid what was going to happen; they would kill every single man in his cell if it meant getting their fingers on him.

"Dugan. Gabe. Everyone. Guys, stand down." His voice was scratchy and rough, much more so than it should have been, but the words nonetheless had their desired effect.

"Are you sure?" He found himself faced by five pairs of eyes as the Nazis were growing impatient. Bucky only nodded, his voice forsaking him. He had never claimed to be the bravest of them all, and a small part inside him was doing nothing but screaming, hoping in vain that some kind of miracle would happen and someone would burst in at right this moment to free them all.  

But, of course, nothing happened, and it wasn't long until the soldier gripped his good arm and dragged him from the cage as the others looked on in silent rage. Bucky found it easier not to look back at them; he didn't need his friends' pain to be the last thing he was going to see before they killed him.

*

He tried to run, once. It was during the early days, when his pneumonia had somehow gotten better and his wits were still halfway together and not flayed by whatever it was that Zola was trying to do to him.

They hadn't yet puzzled out exactly how his magic worked, and although he knew he would eventually crack under all the pain, for now he still kept those nuggets of information to himself, instead doing nothing but endlessly revealing his name and number to them, over and over again, like he had been taught. He was almost never left alone when awake, but at one point the moment came and he wasn't too shy to waste it.

His skin seemed to break much too easily ever since they had strapped him to the table, but at least his fingers could reach where it was important. Bucky hated how easily the magic flowed through him by now, hated how it took barely more than a thought and little conscious effort to cause the destruction he wanted to. The straps holding him to the table snapped, and its legs fell apart. Bucky bit his tongue in an effort to avert a scream as he landed roughly on the floor, his broken arm jarred by the impact. The noise was resounding in his ear, long after the room had fallen quiet again. The guards must have heard him; they'd be here any second...

A weapon, he needed a weapon.

He scrambled to his legs and swayed, groaning as the entire room seemed to revolve around him. Looking around, he could find nothing better than a forgotten scalpel on one of the surgery tables, encrusted with something he'd rather not think about at the moment. Clutching it in his hand, he cautiously made his way to the door they had dragged him through a few days ago. He thought it was more likely to lead him back to the other prisoners and ultimately freedom than the other one that Zola usually entered through.

Bucky wasn't quite sure how, but somehow he managed to take out the single soldier stationed in front of the door, even though it took far longer and was far messier than it should have been. He leaned against the wall, gulping down big lungfuls of air as he tried to force strength into his body where there was none. At least now, with the soldier's gun, he had a proper weapon. It took far too long for his taste until he felt steady enough on his feet again to keep moving forward. After a moment of thought, he pressed his bloody hand against the wall just down the hall from the door he had emerged out of; with another surge of magic that made his knees wobble, dropped down half of the ceiling to cut off any soldier who might be coming through the hallway at his back.

That his idea had been less than stellar he realised when he another troop of soldiers rounded the corner, advancing quickly on him with their weapons drawn and undoubtedly attracted by all the ruckus he had caused. Zola was with them, eyes shining brightly and without a trace of fear behind his huge glasses.

Bucky acted without thinking - in a single fluid motion he had cocked the gun, disengaged the safety and taken several shots at Zola. When asked later, he could never recount exactly what the man did; but somehow two of his soldiers moved in front of him after a whispered word, grunting as the bullets hit them in the chest. Zola laughed, even as he sent the others forward. They raised their guns, aiming at him and blocking the hallway so completely that it was impossible for Bucky to escape.

“Shoot only his legs. I want him alive.” Zola deliberately used English, as if he wanted to make sure that Bucky understood.

 He cursed, running to the side where the open doorway was with the goal of shutting himself into the lab. He didn't make it quite far enough; a weapon was jammed into the open doorway just as Bucky attempted to slam it closed. Another quick, bloody touch on the hilt and a spark of magic and the gun suddenly exploded, hopefully right in its owner's hands, freeing the doorway in the process. Bucky closed it but found it too hard to shove a cabinet in front of it; his strength seemed to be deserting him, and it was all he could do to lean against the doorway in a vain effort to hold it closed. He barely had the energy to break the lock with his magic so it would jam.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he tried to breathe deeply, cursing as he had to cough again. The same moment as he was doubled over in pain, the door on the other side of the room flew open, revealing another group of soldiers who entered slowly, their guns pointing at him. Bucky felt panic fluttering in his chest. As he reached out to touch the wall next to him, determined to bring down the room and be buried underneath rather than going back to being their prisoner, the door behind him slammed open, crashing into his back and sending him sprawling onto the ground.

"Gebt acht auf seine Hände!" _Mind his hands_. If there had been any doubts that Zola knew more about his magic than anybody else Bucky had met, they were all dispelled now. He scrambled for purchase on the floor, kicking and lashing out with everything he had. He didn't even feel the pain in his broken arm anymore - everything had shrunk into a single focal point of desire in his mind, the desperate wish to _get away_. It wasn't until they restrained his hands, keeping his fingers from touching anything, that his resistance slowly began to ebb away.

Two hands closed around the sides of his head, and he had one quick look at Arnim Zola's face before it seemed like a lightning bolt was shattering his skull. Pain was cursing through him, and he screamed as he convulsed on the floor; but even through the agony, he could hear Zola's smile and the whispered words underneath.

"Ah, Sergeant Barnes, you are not the only one who can do magic."

*

They never allowed him to escape again after that. His magic was in his skin, in his fingers, and they made sure that he could never touch any surface where he could do any kind of damage. No matter how much he fought, how much he moved and tried to rip out the needles filled with whatever they were pumping through his veins, it all was to no avail.

Far worse, however, was whatever Zola was doing to him. He never explained whatever magic he possessed, but whatever it was, it always had something to do with Bucky's mind. Soon he didn't know what was real anymore; did he really hear his sister calling out for him? Did his wounds really heal twice as fast they used to, with the result that both his pneumonia and his broken arm seemed to be gone within a week? The endless pain set his mind abuzz until he was lost in a sea of agony and confusion. The only thing he remembered, that he desperately held on to, was that he couldn't tell anybody. He had to keep his family, had to keep Steve safe. He couldn't tell them anything he knew about the war, about his magic, about himself.

When Steve's face first appeared in his field of view, he thought it was another illusion, like Becca's voice before. But unlike the other hallucinations this one didn't disappear, seeming disturbingly real especially when he started ripping off the restraints tying Bucky to the table. Bucky frowned, trying to focus his gaze even as his arms grasped for purchase on Steve's jacket. Something was wrong, Steve was the wrong shape, the wrong height, this wasn't-

"I thought you were dead." Steve's voice, however, was still the same. If Bucky just closed his eyes, he'd be back in Brooklyn and everything would be fine. If he just closed his eyes...Steve shook him again and was clearly keen on getting him to stand, so Bucky gave up and simply accepted the strange nature of this hallucination, if it was one.

"I thought you were smaller," he retorted with some delay. Steve just snorted. His arms felt both disturbingly muscular ( _this isn't right, this isn't right_ , Bucky's mind was screaming, _this cannot be Steve, this ISN'T RIGHT it has to be Zola's mind magic, this cannot be-_ ) and comforting at the same time, and Bucky wasn't at all sure what to make of it.

Steve, however, didn't disappear and didn't change back to the way he used to be either, staying unsettlingly large and solid somehow.

"What happened to you?" Not that that would answer anything, and it truly didn't.

"I joined the army," Steve simply shrugged. Bucky couldn't help but gape. His thoughts were a helpless tangle and his body still reverberating from all the pain, part of him suspecting that Zola was behind all of this and part of him almost beginning to think that what he was experiencing was, in fact, real. Even if Steve didn't offer any other explanations beyond the rather useless one he had just given. Bucky frowned, deciding to dig deeper. Maybe the illusion would give itself away.

"Did it hurt?" he asked.

"A little." Another shrug from Steve. Bucky knew that tone of voice; it was the exact same tone Steve always used when he told him that everything was absolutely fine, he wasn't hurt, when he was hiding several broken ribs under his shirt.

"Is this permanent?" Bucky pried further. If he could only make out what was real and what was not...

"So far. Come on, Bucky, we need to get out of here," Steve said, looking around the hallways. Not helpful at all. His arm was still slung firmly around Bucky's shoulder, and Bucky had to admit that it would have been much harder for him to stay upright without it.

"The others?" Bucky asked. If this Steve really was real, he'd hopefully know what Bucky was referring to.

"They're outside already. Freed them earlier. You're the last one."

"Good." Bucky sagged a little in relief. For now, he simply chose to believe what the strange apparition that might or might not be Steve was saying. It was better that way, especially if it was true. Steve dragged him along, strangely without meeting any more soldiers. Bucky was grateful for the latter; he wasn't sure whether he would've been any help to Steve in his current state when it came to fighting. And he still couldn't believe that Steve was able to shoulder it all himself, despite the strange new shape he was currently in.

As they entered the main hall, where Bucky dimly remembered manufacturing new weapons for the Nazis, the roar of several explosions shook the air. Bucky stumbled backwards at the flash of heat that rose from the ground in front of them, ripping away most supporting structures and leaving only the flimsy rails at the side intact. They managed to reach the one place where there still seemed to be a bridge leading over across to the other side.

Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones there. Bucky barely heard what the Nazi in the uniform was saying to Steve as his sight was fixated on the small form next to him.

Zola.

Weakness or not, Steve next to him or not, all of Bucky's instinct screamed at him to attack, to repay the scientist for what he had done to him whilst a smaller part of brain was curling up on itself, whimpering in fear. It hadn't forgotten what had happened. Bucky reached out with his bloody fingers, touching the rails of the metal balcony they were both standing on, seeing Zola's eyes follow his gesture. The spark of genuine fear in them tasted sweeter than honey.

Before he could do anything, however, Steve had stepped onto the bridge, walking towards the Nazi officer. There was no way for Bucky to make the balcony break off without damaging Steve. He ground his teeth in frustration, not losing the connection with the metal beneath his hand, however. Maybe he could-

There wasn't another opportunity. He had to watch the bridge disconnect in the middle and both the Nazi and Zola disappear through a faraway door. His thoughts were running faster and faster, and he was unable to shake the echo of the Nazi's voice, combined with the terrible permanent grimace of the red ruin of his face. _You have left humanity behind_. Was that what had happened? Had they all somehow stepped into a nightmare realm where everything was twisted? He shuddered.

"We need to get out of here." Steve was next to him again, gripping his arm. Bucky nodded, temporarily being ripped out of his thoughts; but as much as both of them surveyed the large hall, there seemed to be no way to the other side.

Apart from a single metal beam that was, leading across the inferno below.

"Is there another way out?" he asked Steve, licking his lips. He wished he could remember the answer to the question himself, but he couldn't, most events from immediately before Zola's lab blurring together in his mind in an incongruous mass.

"I don't think so." Steve shook his head slowly, eyes scanning the burning hall in front of them. "We'll have to cross, I guess. You first."

Bucky managed to withhold an incredulous laugh at the last second. Normally he wouldn't even have batted an eyelid at crossing on nothing but a narrow beam - but in his current state? He was barely able to walk, how was he going to make it across?

"C'mon, Buck." Steve squeezed his shoulder slightly before pushing him forward a little. "You first." It reminded Bucky acutely of the time they had dared each other to climb up a very rickety looking set of old stairs back in Brooklyn, and those words, more than anything, slowly began to convince him that this was indeed the real Steve he was talking to.

He took a deep breath, wishing desperately that he could somehow use his magic to steady his own feet. Then he stepped onto the beam.

Bucky barely made it to the other side, and his heart was still beating strongly when he arrived, staring in disconsolation at the remnants of the beam falling into the flames below them. He could barely hear Steve over the roar of the flames, but he didn't even need to hear his words to know what he was saying. The same that the old Steve would say, of course.

"No, not without you!" Bucky shouted back, clinging to the railing in front of him. There was no way he would leave Steve out of his sight again. If this was a hallucination, it would mean that it would be over as soon as Steve was gone - and hallucination or no, there was no way he would leave him alone. Not in a factory about to blow up completely.

And so he watched as Steve prepared to jump across a chasm so wide Bucky wouldn't have thought of crossing it with a ten foot pole in his hand. He could hear himself shouting _NO,_ but Steve didn't listen, only tried to get as much of a headstart as he could, jumping straight towards Bucky.

 _Left humanity behind_ , indeed.

Bucky's shoulders almost left their sockets when Steve collided with his arms, desperately grabbing them and the railings to keep himself from falling into the flames below. He clung to Bucky for one precious second before he managed to climb over and heave himself onto the other side next to him.

"Fuck," Bucky said. It was the only thing that currently came to mind. Steve didn't reply, but stared at him strangely instead, chest heaving as he gulped deep breaths of air.

"C'mon," Steve finally told him as he got up, helping Bucky to his legs again. "We need to go."

They did.

*

"Bucky! Bucky, you're alive!" Gabe enveloped him in a hug before Bucky could even think about doing anything. Dugan collided with him not long after and so did the rest of the prisoners from his cell and those left of the 107th. Steve stayed back a little, as if this was something private that nobody should be intruding upon, and it was at that moment that Bucky finally realised that this clearly wasn't a hallucination. No vision could be this real.

"How are you all?" he asked, briefly touching Gabe's shoulders before he realised that his hands were still bloody and dirty. "Did anybody else get hurt?"

"We got a few injured ones and some that are barely able to walk from exhaustion, but aside from that nobody actually died. Like a bloody miracle." Gabe shook his head as if he couldn't believe that they'd been so lucky.

"Well, I'm guessing it was mostly because of Captain America here." Dugan grinned, pointing at Steve, who was still standing back almost shyly.

"Captain-" Something inside Bucky's brain clicked. For some reason, he hadn't connected the Steve next to him to the 'super soldier' they'd been hearing about for a while during their war efforts. Of course he had never thought that Steve would have been the one-

Steve. Captain America. The fight to escape, the hallucinations, all the times he had privately asked for a miracle...all the pain, the worry, the exhaustion. Everything came crushing in over him, and he took a few quick steps to the side before retching. If there had been anything left in his stomach, it would have been gone now.

"Bucky? Bucky, are you alright?" Bucky looked up to see Steve standing next to him, one of his hands on his shoulder. His other friends were clustered around him, worry creasing their foreheads.

"'m fine," he murmured, weakly waving one hand. "Just fine. Give me a moment."

Steve nodded and stepped away, but the expression in his eyes showed how worried he still was. Bucky put his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths. A water flask appeared in his field of vision, and he looked up to stare in Gabe's eyes. At least Gabe and the others were still the same; the only familiar thing Bucky had to hold on to. He gave a thankful nod and rinsed his mouth with a little water before handing the flask back.

"So, they made you a captain?" Somehow his mind had short-circuited, and there was nothing better he could think about asking Steve. "Damn, and here I was busting my ass off just so I could get sergeant, you jerk."

Steve smiled a little at the familiar insult.

"I guess? Sorry." He shrugged. "I did do at least _some_ basic training though."

 "Some?" Dugan roared with laughter. "Look at him boys, I bet it must'a been more than just 'some', the way he just came barging in and freed everyone. I cannot believe he's the tiny shrimp you always told us about, Buck."

Bucky just shook his head.

"Believe me, I can't either," he murmured.

" _Shrimp_?" Steve crossed his arms in front of his chest, managing to look comically affronted. Bucky guessed that he had to be looking intimidating to some, but he still couldn't see anybody else but the small, sickly Steve that he had grown up with. Despite the chaos in his mind, he remained remarkably unimpressed.

"Well, can't deny that that's what you were." He said with another shrug. "And, since you're apparently the highest-ranking officer here, care to tell us what happens next?"

"I was going to radio in for extraction," Steve said sheepishly before bringing out a com with a neat bullet hole straight through it. "Looks like that won't be possible anymore though."

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose to force himself to think straight as much as to try and get rid of the lingering nausea at the back of his throat.

"Well, what do we have?" At least the practical problems helped him to push everything else aside for now. It was something to focus on, an anchor to the real world. He had to get his friends and comrades home safely before anything else. That was all that counted.

"Most of the complex was blown up," Morita said, looking him up and down as if he expected him to bend over and throw up again. "But there was a small warehouse in one of the side complexes that didn't get damaged too bad. It’s got water and supplies in it and we got water flasks off some of the dead soldiers. They won't last forever, but for a few days..."

"How many of the cars and tanks are still working?" Steve wanted to know. "I don't think everyone here will be able to walk."

"Not that many." Gabe shook his head. "We got one tank and maybe two or three cars. No more."

"Well then..."

The rest of the night passed as they attempted to sort out the logistics of the long march back. And it was going to be long - Bucky had never realised just how remote the secret facilities were that this special brand of Nazis named Hydra had been keeping them in. Exhaustion crept through him even before the first rays of the sun rose over the mountains, and he could sense the worried glances that Steve kept throwing in his direction. Aside from a single comment that he should probably take a break and rest a little before they headed off that Bucky ignored, he didn't say anything.

"Right," Steve finally said, "we should all catch at least a few hours of sleep before we head off. We're going to need the energy tomorrow. All of us," he repeated, glancing at Bucky, who rolled his eyes. The others were all yawning already apart from Steve, who offered to stand watch until they had to leave to make sure that no Nazis would be coming back and surprise them as everybody slept.

Bucky finally gave in; it was hard not to with the exhaustion and pain still thrumming through his bones and his comrades all yawning and ready to catch some sleep themselves. He should have been out almost immediately if previous experiences were anything to go by; but instead he kept tossing and turning on the covers, his mind tormenting him with the sight of Zola smirking at him, needles in his arm and foreign thoughts in his head, a red skull reflecting the flames from below and Steve - Steve who didn't look like he should, Steve who was no longer human...

He must have dozed off for he awoke with a choked scream in his throat, shuddering violently. For a second he thought the pneumonia was back, but it was only his own mind rebelling. It was still dark outside; his hands reached around blindly for a water flask until he remembered that water was one of the things they had rationed most strongly. Maybe if he found some clean snow outside and boiled it...

Drawing the jacket Dugan had found him more tightly around himself, he crawled out of the warehouse that they had been cooped up in, stepping carefully so as not to wake up anybody else. There was a lone fire outside with nobody sitting in front of it; after finding a few handfuls of snow not blackened by smoke and a scratched mug, Bucky made his way over to it. Plopping down in front of the fire, he stretched out his hands to warm himself, holding the mug so that the heat would melt the snow inside.

He nearly dropped the mug, sloshing out half the contents inside, when someone appeared next to him, dropping a hand on his shoulder. It was only for a second, but he was back in Zola's grasp, and it was Zola's hand on his shoulder, Zola's hand on his head and the pain, the _pain_ , the fear, the-

 Bucky didn't realise that he was holding a knife to Steve's throat until a cold gust of wind made him blink as it whipped some snow in his face. He took in Steve's widened eyes, his name on Steve's lips and then the knife clattered to the ground as his fingers began shaking violently. He sat back down, not looking at his friend as he picked up the mug again and automatically pushed some more snow into it. His hands were still shaking, but maybe he could get a little water down his throat eventually.

"Bucky?" This time Steve announced himself before he stood next to him. He was holding a blanket in his hands, and despite his size he looked incredibly small. "You cold?"

Bucky looked down at his shaking hands and noticed, almost distantly, that Steve was right. He was cold.

"Yeah," he whispered, still not looking Steve in the eyes.

"Is it okay if I help you with it?" Steve asked, still not coming closer. Bucky rubbed his eyes and nodded. Steve came over and draped the blanket around his back, careful not to touch him again. It almost made Bucky scream, although he couldn't say why.

"I'm sorry," Steve said quietly. "I should've announced myself before coming so close and not just reached out. I-"

"It's fine, Steve." Bucky waved his hand. He tried one of his old smiles, although it apparently came out rather lop-sided and cranky, if the expression on Steve's face was anything to go by. "I'm okay. I was just...a little startled, is all. I'm – heavens above, I'm sorry for almost killing you. Was out of my mind there for a bit."

Both of them knew that he was lying, but Steve said nothing, just accepting Bucky's words for now. For someone who had always been good at speaking his mind and running headlong into confrontations, Steve had always been remarkably quiet when it came to trying to pick Bucky's mind. Still, Bucky would never forget the expression in Steve's eyes when he came to himself holding a knife to Steve's throat.

"Here, I've got some more water if you want it." Steve offered him the flask, and Bucky took it with a grateful nod. Better than his miserable mug anyway.

"Could I even do that now? Kill you I mean?" The words were out before Bucky could hold them back, and he cringed internally when they resounded in his ears.

 "Well." Steve reached up and scratched his head, and the gesture was so achingly familiar that Bucky felt a real smile creep on his face. "It's probably a bit harder now, I guess. Haven't really tested my limits yet."

"I'm not sure I want to know what you 'testing your limits' looks like now," Bucky remarked dryly. The shaking in his hands had almost subsided and the world was starting to return to its normal colours again. Maybe, if he just kept up the banter with Steve like he used to, he could pretend that everything was fine and nothing had happened. "It was bad enough when you were smaller, I don't even want to find out what it's like now."

Steve grinned; when Bucky didn't pull back, punched him likely in the shoulder.

"Jerk," he murmured. "I mean, just saying. There is still tons I don't know about this new body yet."

"So...what actually happened?" Bucky asked. "How _did_ you end up this way? And no lies this time."

"It wasn't a lie, I really _did_ join the army..."

And so, Steve began talking.


	3. Chapter 3

Getting back to camp took longer than anticipated. They had all been calculating the days it would take them to return at typical military marching speed, but of course none of them save Steve was in a good enough condition to walk particularly fast or for a very long time. Many of the prisoners who had been there for longer were malnourished, not to mention the aching limbs and those who were too injured to walk anyway.

Steve had told Bucky to get onto one of the cars to ride with the most injured, but he had refused, mentioning that whilst he wasn't feeling particularly great he could still walk as well as most others. And it was true - he didn't know what Zola and his doctors had done to him, but whatever it was, it hadn't only affected his mind and thoughts. He was sleeping less and, despite everything he had gone through, had more stamina too. Even the scrapes he had received during his escape had disappeared after a day, and the pneumonia and his broken arm were gone like they had never even existed.

It frightened him.

He hadn't tried to use his magic ever since they had escaped, but it thrummed right behind his eyes as if it was waiting for him to set it free with an almost unholy power. On the night before they were due to arrive in the camp, he stole away in the early hours of morning; Steve, who was holding the watch again, saw him leave but only nodded when Bucky told him he needed to take a piss.

Far enough from the camp where he was sure it couldn't be heard, he knelt down next to a large piece of rock. Some flakes were coming off where it had splintered from the cold, but otherwise it was solid. Bucky touched a bloody finger to the rock, closing his eyes as the thrumming behind them intensified. So much power...he released just a dribble of it.

The rock burst apart with a loud crack, leaving fragments no bigger than a fist in the soil.

Bucky's eyes widened as he stared at the ground in front of him. He had used so little magic, it should only have splintered the rock, maybe split it into a few big pieces, nothing more. His hand was shaking again - only ever so slightly, but he jammed it into the ground, burying it in the cold soil until he couldn't feel it anymore.

"So it's true, then."

Bucky whirled around, seeing Morita, Gabe and Dugan standing next to a tree behind him. He felt his hands go for his combat knife again but stilled the movement at the last moment, only standing up instead and hiding the blood on his fingers by shoving them into his pockets.

"What is?" he asked warily.

"Your magic," Morita said, his eyes not leaving Bucky's face. Bucky shivered.

"I don't know what you’re talking about." Tension was thrumming through his entire body - whether he was ready to run or to fight, he didn't know either.

"Wooooah." Morita raised his hands and took a small step forward. "Easy, Buck. We're not here to cause trouble. Have you never wondered where all my 'skill' with com devices came from that I told you guys about? You aren't the only one who can do magic."

Bucky shivered again, this time more violently. The tension slowly left him, leaving behind little more than an exhausted man.

"That's what Zola said," he whispered. "He..."

"Mind magic?" Morita asked softly, nodding thoughtfully when Bucky inclined his head. "Thought so, yeah. Well, I can tell you not all of us are like that, trust me. And it seems like yours is...quite unique, too."

"Because it only destroys?" Bucky asked bitterly, hands balling into fists inside his pockets. "Because it has little use besides hurting others?"

"What do you mean?" Gabe frowned. "You single-handedly saved half the unit from dying back when that flu made the rounds during training. And making that cliff come down, too."

"You've known since then? And didn't say anything?" Bucky frowned.

"Well, Gabe _suspected_ since then but didn't say anything. Neither he nor I can do any of that stuff ourselves, so we weren't sure." Dugan shrugged. "Morita saw you leave earlier as he was tinkering with Cap's broken com and thought that maybe we should follow you. He knew from the moment when you started causing things to malfunction in the factory."

Bucky took one of his hands out of his pocket and ran it through his hair.

"And you don't...it doesn't bother you?" He still had to make sure on this point.

"Okay, you need to stop with that entire self-pitying crap." Gabe stared at him sternly. "Do we _look_ like we're bothered by it?"

"Yeah." Dugan nodded. "And you've helped an awful lot of people so far. Nothing bad about it that I can see."

"Nope," Morita agreed.

Bucky took a deep breath and released it, letting his hand fall to his side again. It wasn't that easy, but he would never tell them about the almost perverse pleasure that using his magic gave him, the simple elation that surged through him every time he used his powers.

"Thanks. But, uhm." He hesitated slightly before the next bit. "Don't tell Steve about this, alright? He can't...he shouldn't know. At least not now. He has enough on his plate already."

"Whatever you say." Morita shrugged. "Though I don't think he'd mind in the least, not with his brushes with the serum and anything. Quite sure Erskine could use magic, too. But we'll keep quiet for now if that's what you want."

 "Thank you." Bucky looked down at the destroyed rock at his feet again and then at the blood on his fingertips.

"We should probably go back," he realised belatedly. "Steve is going to wonder where we are."

"True." Morita rolled his shoulders. "Just one more thing...if you ever need help with radios or coms, you ask me, yeah?"

"Sure thing." Bucky smiled and grabbed Morita's shoulder in gratitude as they headed back to camp.

*

"You know you could get an honourable discharge and go home, right?" Steve's voice sounded tight as he looked down at Bucky. Bucky avoided his gaze, putting the shirt he'd taken off at the nurse's orders back on. He knew that he didn't exactly look his best - the scrapes and bruises from his time in the Hydra base had all healed, but he could feel the bones sticking uncomfortably close to his skin. Not to mention the occasional shakes that seemed to be overcoming him again and again. He felt as if Steve's gaze was boring into his skin.

"Nobody would hold it against you. You could take all the time you need, heal up, get some rest..." Steve's voice trailed off as Bucky finally raised his eyes and met his gaze.

"And leave you and the others to fight to their deaths here?" he asked, his voice like gravel. "Sit on my ass at home when there's hundreds dying over here every day? When Falsworth, Dernier, Dugan, Gabe or Morita or _you_ could be one of them?" Bucky shook his head. "No."

 He still couldn't say it, he realised. He still couldn't tell Steve just how painful the thought of him dying far away from Bucky was. The simple image of it was enough to almost make his throat close up; when he thought about any of his other comrades...no, he would never forgive himself if anything happened that he might have been able to prevent. Not ever.

"I wish I wouldn't understand so well what you're saying," Steve murmured, handing Bucky a flask with some water in. Bucky took a grateful sip.

"Sometimes I wish you couldn't," Bucky says very softly, half hoping that Steve wouldn’t hear it. But of course he did - this new body of his seemed to have better senses in every single way. Steve frowned, his gaze drilling into Bucky's.

"What do you mean?"

"Because it means that you'll probably spend the rest of this war running headfirst into every danger imaginable, and I'll have to cover your ass," Bucky said with a lop-sided smile. "Keeping you safe is going to become a fulltime job from now on."

"I don't need anybody to clean up for me _or_ keep me safe," Steve said frowning. "I can do it myself now."

Bucky laughed at the look of indignation in his face. Suddenly he looked exactly like the Steve that Bucky remembered - filled to the brim with righteous fury and ready to fight who- or whatever was in his way.

"The hell you can." He grinned as he stood up, patting Steve's shoulder. "Now that you _think_ you can do everything, it's even more important that I keep you from getting your ass kicked. I know you.  Literally every Nazi between here and Russia will try to murder you sooner or later."

Steve snorted, but a smile ghosted over his face.

"Well...I'm happy if you're staying. Do you think any of the others would want to as well?"

"Oh, I'm sure they will." Bucky didn't even hesitate with the answer. If there was anything he had learned about the men he had been imprisoned with it was that they'd rather freeze in a forest together fighting Nazis than going back to their homelands. Steve smiled again, this time more widely. Then he pulled Bucky into a hug.

"I'm glad you're with me," he said quietly. Bucky's answer was muffled in the folds of Steve's clothes. It was...unexpectedly nice to be hugged by someone bigger than him. Steve's body was warm; despite his strength, there was nothing crushing about his embrace, just a comfortable closeness. It felt good. And it was only now that he realised just how much he had missed Steve, had missed the simple closeness that had always been between them and that came so naturally whatever they were doing. For a moment he allowed himself to sink into Steve's embrace, let the exhaustion trickle through the wall he had built around his mind.

"Don't go all sentimental on me now," Bucky said as they separated again, patting Steve's back. "Don't want to destroy the image of the tough Captain America."

"As if soldiers have to be tough all the time." Steve grinned at him. "Come on, let's go and find something to eat. I know I'm starving, and they'll be expecting me in the command tent later on."

Bucky bit his tongue before he could ask whether it was for tactical reasons or because Agent Carter wanted him there. It certainly wasn't his place to judge what Steve was doing and with whom. Even if he'd have liked to be involved, too. Still, he rested his palms on Steve's back for a moment longer before they stepped out of the tent together to find some food and the rest of the soldiers.

*

He was less surprised than he should have been when he was called into the command tent not long after Steve had vanished inside past the flaps. Bucky'd had enough experience in war camps and with military missions to know what happened when somebody who had been in solitary confinement with the Germans unexpectedly managed to return alive.

 Steve's expression was angry when Bucky entered the tent. He could almost touch the tension in the air and wondered who might be the first to snap. Agent Carter stood next to Steve, her face almost expressionless apart from the tightly drawn eyebrows. Colonel Phillips was the only one sitting down, mustering Bucky from head to toe as soon as he was inside. It made Bucky uncomfortably conscious of how unhealthy he still had to be looking. He resisted the urge to slump, lower his gaze or cross his arms in front of his chest. Showing weakness would not win him any sympathy points here.

"You asked for me, sir?" He saluted, standing up as straight as possible.

"Sergeant Barnes." The colonel nodded. He gestured to the spare chair in the tent. "Feel free to sit."

"Thank you, sir, but I'd rather stand." Bucky swallowed around the hard lump at the back of his throat. He had to try and keep his wits together and slouching in a chair wouldn't help.

"As you wish, sergeant." Phillips sighed and looked down at the papers in front of him before directing his gaze back up at Bucky.

"Captain Rogers informed me that you were imprisoned by yourself for a while before he found you, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir." No more words than necessary. Short and succinct. Bucky tried not to think of how eerily similar this felt to the Nazis asking him questions. He resisted the urge to cite his number and name, over and over again, just to keep clinging to sanity.

"Were they...did they question you for information?" It seemed clear that Colonel Phillips wasn't too happy with what protocol dictated he had to ask Bucky.

"Yes, sir." Bucky swallowed, hoping he wouldn't be overstepping. "They tortured me for the names of bases, informants and certain high-ranking officials on our side. Before I could divulge anything, Steve...Captain Rogers came to rescue me."

There was a loud crack next to him, making everyone's head whip around. Steve was looking down at a piece of the colonel's desk that he had apparently gripped so tightly that it had broken off. His face was a grimace. Colonel Phillips cleared his throat, pointedly looking back at Bucky.

"I apologize, sergeant, but we had to be sure. If you remember anything else that could be of importance, let me or Agent Carter know." He very pointedly avoided looking at Steve.

Bucky barely heard the 'dismissed' from how loudly his heart was hammering inside his chest. He saluted again before he walked out and didn't stop until he had reached the edge of the camp. The metallic taste of blood was on his tongue, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to lash out with his magic, destroy what he could before they found him again.

A part inside of him was aware that Phillips had done this as nicely as possible and that he could have easily kept him for further questions. Although he was sure that Steve would have started exploding at some point, so perhaps it hadn't even been the colonel's pity that had kept his questions brief, but simply a common sense of trying to limit collateral damage.

"I'm sorry, Buck." Steve stepped up next to him, and Bucky flinched slightly, not having heard him approach as caught up in his own thoughts as he had been. "I tried telling them that you'd never give anything away and not to question you, but..."

"It's alright." Bucky took a deep breath, turning lightly so that he could see Steve better. There was a strange comfort in his presence, especially now with his new hulking form. "They had to. Protocol and all that. And I might have given something away, they couldn't know."

"No, they should have. It's not right, it's-" Steve sighed in frustration, and yes, this was exactly the same old Steve Bucky had always known. He shrugged.

"They had every right to do it, and you know it, Steve. And to be honest, if the Germans had carried on...I don't know what I might or might not have told them."

"Nothing, I'm sure you would've-"

"No." Bucky looked up, staring Steve straight into the eyes. "Don't turn me into some kind of saint when I am not, Steve. You don't know what happened. You don't know what it was like. You have no right-" He breathed in deeply again, forcing down the anger and frustration that had been building inside his chest for days.

"It'll be fine. You got me out after all. And I didn't divulge anything, so no damage has been done."

"I didn't mean to hurt you." Steve looked lost as he stood there, so helpless despite the fact that his shoulders were wider than Bucky's now. "I didn't realise- just let me know if you need anything, alright?"

"Of course." Bucky shot him one of his little smiles, hoping it'd dispel Steve's worries. He also hoped that the topic wouldn't come up again - his own nagging guilt and discomfort at who he was and what he was hiding from Steve were already bad enough without Steve trying to make it seem like he was some kind of great guy, unblemished by any faults.

*

Despite Steve's eagerness to continue fighting as soon as possible, they spent a few days resting up at the camp. It was only now that Bucky truly felt how deep his exhaustion went; he could see in the other's eyes that they were similarly tired. A few days of rest and plenty of meals managed to reinvigorate most of their spirits, although some of the new lines on their faces would never disappear.

Bucky couldn't help but watch Steve whenever he was around and hadn't disappeared into one of the command tents. There was something about the way he moved that inexorably drew most people's gazes towards him; Steve had always been confident but now that confidence was ringing through every single step that he took, making his appearance powerful like an almost unstoppable force. It took Bucky a while to realise, but in the end he had to admit that maybe this was how Steve had always been meant to be, that through a strange twist of fate he had finally gotten the body that his mind had been deserving for so long.

There was a strange pain inside his chest whenever he saw Steve like that and the intimidated and admiring gazes that followed him everywhere. Bucky had always wanted the entire world to know and see what an extraordinary person Steve truly was; but now that they did, it was almost as if something had been taken from him. He supposed that was what happened if your best friend suddenly turned into a national icon.

In order not to turn to brooding every minute of the day, Bucky decided to pursue his own business. As much as he hated being confronted with what Zola had done to him, he had to know the boundaries of his abilities sooner or later. With Morita's help they set up their own little corner for practising their respective magic without any uninvolved eyes prying. They also often used the area to practise as a team. Steve had insisted on Morita, Dernier, Gabe, Dugan, Falsworth and him doing so to strengthen their team work and coordination.  

His first instinct when he had pulverised the rock had been right. His magic was far stronger now, although it also made it more difficult to control. In some moments, when Bucky concentrated, he thought he could feel a slight taint on it, the echo of Zola's touch on his mind, although most of the time the bad taste seemed no more than a memory. Still, the fact remained that his magic was wilder than before; when using it fully, it took every ounce of his strength to control it and make sure it didn't go beyond its set boundaries.

Even though their abilities were different, Morita was a rather frequent companion for training - his own experience complemented Bucky's. Since control was a rather important issue for his own magic so as not to fry the electronics he was working with, he was able to teach Bucky what had helped him to regulate the force collecting behind his eyes. Bucky, on the other hand, had a much better understanding of what the use of their magic did to their own bodies and how to best overcome the exhaustion that always followed excessive use of it; since they were at war, it was fairly certain that they would be forced to use it as often and as strongly as they could.

Something that neither of them had made plans for, however, was the presence of Peggy Carter.

"I figured it from the moment I saw you in the bar that night," she said, lips curled in amusement as she stared down at Bucky's hunched over form on the muddy ground -  he had been trying to hide the splinters where he had attempted to split a block of wood cleanly in the middle.

"Oh." Bucky was rather stupefied. He hadn't even used magic that night, how did she-

Peggy crossed her arms, obviously enjoying the situation. Far too much, for Bucky's liking.

"You and Morita, am I correct? And Steve knows nothing I assume?"

"Yes. On both accounts. Are you-?"

"Of course I am." One of Peggy's eyebrows rose. "How else would I have noticed? And before you're going to ask, it is strength. I can strengthen whatever I touch - wood, bullets, my own bones. Fairly useful when it comes to a variety of things, I daresay."

Bucky just stared. He was usually good with words, and especially before the war had always known what to say and when to say it, apart from when he was around Steve. Now, Peggy seemed to have the same effect on him - her directness and charm were disarming. As much as it grated at him to admit it, he could very much see what drew Steve towards her.

"Indeed useful," he recovered just enough to say. "Mine...mine is only good for destruction. Wood, let bullets find their aim, bodies. A...variety of things."

"Still sounds like it might be quite useful in war, " Peggy said matter-of-factly. "So, Steve truly knows nothing about this? Why?"

"He's got enough on his plate already. You didn't tell him either, did you?"

"No." Peggy smiled, and it dispelled some of the sternness around her eyes. Yes, Bucky could very _definitely_ see why Steve loved her. "I guess we both know him too well, don't we?"

"I guess." Bucky rolled his shoulders as he finally stood up from where he had been crouching. He took a deep breath and decided to jump right in with his next question. "You love him, don't you?" He kept himself from adding 'as well' at the last moment. It wasn't Peggy's fault that his own stupid heart had decided to love the one man he could probably never have.

"Of course I do. How could I not?" Peggy's smile softened as her eyes were looking inwards, at someone else. "Just as you do."

"I-"

Peggy raised her hand, cutting off whatever Bucky had intended to say.

"Falling in love with Steve is so easy, I was wondering why not more of us are doing it. And I saw the way you look at him - I recognised that look and that expression because I know what you see."

"Fury. Strength. Righteousness." Bucky smiled a little. "Stubbornness. Like a glance of the blue sky after a rainy day."

"Yes. And a heart large enough to love more than one person, if one can share." Peggy cocked her head, her gaze drilling into Bucky's, reading his thoughts before he could speak them. "He loves me, I know that. And oh yes, he loves you, too. He might not have admitted it to himself yet, but he does."

Bucky was, in all honesty, not quite sure what to do with that information. One thing he was sure of, however, was that Peggy Carter certainly wasn't what he had expected when he'd first met her. And that she was right. Steve had perhaps the largest heart out of all of them; if his happiness lay in loving more than one, who was Bucky to judge? It would take time for him to get used to the idea, time and space, but after the war they'd have plenty of both. After the war...it seemed so far away, like a mythical country that he would never get to see.

"You have to promise me to keep him safe," Bucky said quietly. "You know him well enough by now that you're aware how stubborn he is and how little he cares about his own well-being when others are in danger. I once watched him almost get himself killed over a quarter some bullies tried to take from someone he didn't even know. And I'll do my best too, but I won't always be able to have my eyes on him."

Peggy snorted, waving her hand through the air as if to say 'I thought about this before you did'.

"It was my touch that made sure he survived the super serum getting injected into his body," she told him. "I didn't let him die back then, and I won't let him die now, not if I can help it. Guess we'll both have to do our best to look out for him."

"Yeah," Bucky nodded. After a short moment of hesitation, he offered her his hand. When her fingertips touched his, he thought he could almost feel the spark of magic from them. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of Peggy Carter, but the thought that Steve was being loved by more than one person and looked after by more than just himself comforted him to no small degree.

"Thanks," he told her. Peggy just gave him another one of her smiles before pointing down at the block of wood that Bucky had been experimenting on.

"So, just how strong is your magic?"

*

The first outing of what would soon be known as the Howling Commandos went better than expected. They were in and out of the secret Hydra base within an hour, practically decimating everything in their path. Bucky dripped some covert magic into the stones before they set off the explosives to make sure that there would truly be nothing left of the building that Hydra could make any use of.

Their previous practise time together was paying off - although their rhythm and coordination wasn't perfect as of yet, it was enough to confuse the soldiers they were fighting and make short work of them. Apart from overseeing the destruction together with Dernier, who knew more about explosives than anyone in their team, Bucky had returned to his old job as sniper to keep everyone's backs free of enemies. His magic infused bullets all hit their goals without trouble, prompting an impressed comment from Steve.

Falsworth, Dernier and Morita could finally show the true extent of their abilities, and Bucky had to admit that he was impressed - together with Gabe and Dugan, the six of them made a strong team, the strongest that Captain America could have. Steve said so afterwards himself, and everyone's chest seemed to be swelling in pride at his words. When they returned to camp, it was triumphant, and Bucky could almost smile away the pang of pain in his chest when Peggy and Steve fell into a passionate kiss in front of everyone. Almost. He still hadn't forgotten Peggy's words about _a heart large enough to love more than one person_.

That night they celebrated with drink and laughter and camaraderie, and Bucky began to think that maybe, just maybe, everything would all work out fine.

It was the second mission that spelled trouble.

At first, everything seemed to go to plan. The Hydra base was situated at a tactically well-suited spot, surrounded by a freezing river on one and a steep mountainside on the other side. The only point of access that was not from the air seemed to be a bridge just wide enough for one tank across the river that could be destroyed easily enough as soon as it was apparent that an invasion was happening. Falsworth suggested that there was very likely an extensive tunnel network inside the mountain, but nobody knew whether it led to another entrance somewhere.

"I'll swim across the river and take out the guards," Steve suggested as they were all clustered around a small map that showed the rough surroundings of the base. "If we do it at night, they won't see me coming, and once the bridge is secure, we can make sure they won't blow it up before you all are across."

"According to some intel we have, the river is flowing fast and is icy cold even during summertime," Peggy interjected. "I know your super soldier body can take a lot, but the cold muscles might cost you precious seconds and endanger the entire operation."

 _Not only the operation but yourself, too_ , Bucky thought. Peggy shot a glance in his direction, and he knew she was thinking the same thing.

 "Well, according to the same intel, there should only be two soldiers watching the bridge. There's a relatively good vantage point opposite. I think I could make the shot from there, take them both out without them knowing what's coming, and you can storm the bridge the second after," Bucky said.

"Even for you, that's quite the shot, _especially_ when it's getting dark." Steve frowned. "Are you sure you could hit them? With the shield I could simply-"

"I can make it, I'm sure." Bucky met Steve's gaze evenly. It was perhaps the closest he had ever come to telling him about his powers, but before he could Peggy interjected.

"I am sure that Sergeant Barnes knows what he's talking about. His plan seems far more sensible," she decided and that was that. Even Steve knew better than to argue with her when her voice had taken on that tone. Bucky wondered if she suspected anything beyond his magic; nobody amongst the Howling Commandos knew that Zola's experiments'd had other effects as well. He was sure by now that he could see far better at night than before, for example.

After the meeting Agent Carter caught him behind the tent.

"If you'd allow me to, we can see if our different powers combine," she said, brows creased slightly in thought. "Your bullets, even if they find their way, will have to penetrate Hydra armour. If I harden them..."

Bucky nodded. He'd been thinking amongst similar lines.

It turned out to be a splendid idea. Hydra had not been idle since their first prison and factory had been destroyed, and Bucky was sure that the armour they wore was a lot sturdier than what he'd seen before. With his destruction and Peggy's strength, however, the bullets seemed to find their aim without trouble, even penetrating the hard helmets of the soldiers. It only took a few seconds for the two guards to be down and the others to storm over the bridge, Steve leading the charge. Bucky followed them shortly after.

The soldiers on this base were clearly well trained - despite the sudden assault, they didn't scatter or fall into chaos but managed to organise a remarkably effective resistance. If it had been anybody but the Howling Commandos, things might have turned out rather differently. As it was, Steve and the others advanced slowly. Just as he caught up with them, Bucky heard a muffled curse and saw Dernier pressing a hand on his arm where a bullet had caught him.

"Bad?" he asked, and Dernier shook his head. Bucky ripped a piece of fabric off a dead soldier's uniform and bound his arm. "Stay down and out of the way. We'll pick you up on the way out."

Dernier nodded and handed him the explosives he had been carrying. They'd been planning on blowing up the entire underground network to make sure that nobody could ever use these facilities again in the near future. Bucky reached out and grabbed his uninjured shoulder, smiling.

"Make sure to stay alive," he told him before joining the others.

The noise was deafening; soldiers on the Nazi side were shouting, and the gun fire in the air alone was so loud it was impossible to understand any spoken word. Steve signed at him, and Bucky nodded, veering off to the right past Dugan and Morita, who were holding the right flank. He left his large rifle with them, and they gave him a quick nod before concentrating on the soldiers in front of them again.

As soon as he was out of sight, Bucky grabbed the hilt of the large hunting knife he was always carrying. He'd have to go and thin out the lines a little - the resulting confusion would only help Steve and the rest of the commandos.

He slowly crept around a large structure made of stone in front of him, touching it with bloody fingertips as he went. Bucky stopped as soon as he could spy several soldiers from around the corner. With a thought he sent some magic through the stone, causing it to ripple and break down almost right in front of them as he sprinted across to another wall. As expected, two soldiers broke off from the main group and came to investigate.

Faster than a thought Bucky came up behind them, and they hit the ground without even knowing what had happened. He carefully wiped his blade on the dead soldier's jacket before scanning the situation in front of him. Unsurprisingly, the firing seemed to be coming most heavily from where they were shooting at Steve.

Bucky scanned the area above the soldiers; unfortunately everything was clear, so no chance he could bring a building down on them. The ground looked solid as well, so no luck there either. Seems like this left only the old-fashioned way of doing things. What only few people knew was that Bucky had the gift to be extremely quiet, something he'd always been practising but only recently learned to develop fully. And with the noise of the guns around them, sneaking up on the soldiers didn't prove much of a challenge either way. Luck seemed on his side at first with nobody looking in his direction until he killed the first man from behind.

Somehow, when Bucky fought, time seemed to slow to a crawl for him, every sensation intensified. He felt a few drops of blood from the soldier's cut throat hit his face, saw him fall in crystal clarity, the same clarity with which he realised there were now five other soldiers looking at him. There were screams, and then they raised their guns. Bucky threw his knife, killing one more of them, and raised the body of the man he had just killed as cover.

He managed to drop behind the jutted out remnants of a wall and took out the small pistol he had been carrying. A quick check and it was ready - Bucky peeked around the corner to see one of the soldiers far too close for his comfort. He dropped him with two quick shots, mentally counting the bullets he still had left before he'd have to change the magazine. He bent around the corner to fire again when the two soldiers closest to him fell to the ground as a large flying object hit them both in the head. Bucky shot a third man from behind his cover, but it wasn't enough to kill him; Dugan took care of that as he came charging in roaring like a wounded boar and just as dangerous.

"Thanks for that distraction," Dugan said, giving him a pat on the back when there was a momentary lull in the firing. Most soldiers had fled into the tunnels it seemed and were apparently planning on making a last stand there. It gave them enough time to make sure that everywhere outside was secure, but Bucky didn't like the prospect of what Hydra could be coming up with underground whilst they were being busy up here. He wouldn't put it past them to blow them all up, both the Howling Commandos and themselves, in order to take them out.

"What do we do from here?" Falsworth asked, looking questioningly at Steve. Dernier, who had dragged himself into a secure corner close to them now that there was no more firing, spoke a few quick French words, and Steve shook his head.

"No, we cannot simply take them out with explosions yet. The danger that the tunnels collapse is too big, and we don't know whether they have any other exits that they could escape through."

The others nodded along to Steve's words.

"It'd be good to have plans of the buildings or a general layout at least so that we know," Gabe thought out loud. Bucky exchanged a glance with Dugan.

"I think I know where to get those. Give me a few minutes," he said quietly. Steve frowned.

"Bucky, you-"

"A few minutes."

He didn't wait for Steve's reply, wandering off in the direction of the wounded soldiers instead, clenching the hilt of his knife in his hand. One of the unfortunate Nazis was still alive, and for only a single second Bucky wondered what would happen if he used his magic to destroy his mind, bit by bit, just like Zola had done. An eye for an eye, was that not the saying? The same moment he thought it he could feel the bile rise up in his throat. True, none of the Hydra soldiers here were innocent, but to use magic to dabble in someone's mind...he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and kept walking. No magic, no.

He had the answers that he wanted a few minutes later just as he had promised Steve. It had taken remarkably little to make the soldier talk, and for that Bucky was grateful, especially since most Hydra agents he had known had preferred to kill themselves with cyanide before divulging anything. Maybe this one had been too low in rank to receive a capsule or-

Bucky realised that his thoughts were purposely shying away from thinking about what he'd just done. The fact that it had probably been necessary if they wanted to prevent the deaths of hundreds of people didn't exactly make it any better; but it wasn't the first thing he would have to live with and likely wouldn't be the last. He met everybody's gaze straight on when he returned, challenging them to say something but nobody did.

The soldier had confirmed their suspicions that there was another secret exit out of the tunnel complex on the other side of the mountain. They would have to be fast to avoid anyone fleeing; everybody recognised that. A plan was formed within moments, and they all went back into motion again. Their simplified goal was to get to the exit as fast as possible to try and prevent anyone from taking any important parts or blueprints with them. At least the bigger weapons would remain; according to the soldier Bucky had interrogated, the doorway was just wide enough for one man to run through, so anything large would likely remain behind.

Bucky and Steve teamed up to take one of the approaches whilst Dugan and Gabe would take the other; the rest of the Howling Commandos would remain behind for now and cover their backs. Bucky watched as Steve purposefully strode towards the building. He wondered if Steve would ever talk about what had just happened; he could hardly imagine him ignoring it. But then they did have more important things to focus on at the moment.

"They'll likely be waiting for us right behind that door," Steve said. "I doubt they've all run away. It wouldn't be like them."

"Agreed." Bucky gripped his gun that he had recovered earlier more tightly. "How do you want to do this?"

"I go out first, draw their fire," Steve suggested after a moment of thought. "The shield will protect me from the worst; once I've got their attention, you come in and take advantage of them looking away."

"Good." Bucky nodded. "On your mark. I'm ready."

The plan worked almost too well - the Hydra operatives immediately began firing when Steve stepped into view, giving Bucky the crucial second to step forward and open fire himself. There weren't too many soldiers; between him and Steve they were quickly done for.

They advanced further through the tunnels, encountering little pockets of resistance but overall remarkably few of them. A feeling of unease began to spread inside Bucky's stomach - this seemed too easy, too fast, too simple. He knew that Steve and he were good fighters, but no Hydra agent was that bad. Not from what he'd encountered until today.

The unease in his stomach turned into screaming when they reached the last big hall. Bucky could see the small tunnel leading to the other door outside at the other end - but he noticed it only briefly before all his attention was drawn by the big war machine and the troops right in front of them.

"Well, fuck me." Dugan walked up next to Bucky and Steve, Gabe coming up on their other side.

"Surrender and we will kill neither you nor your friends outside!" It wasn't clear who was saying the words, but they came from rather high up somewhere. Bucky looked around - there, a small balcony with a shape on it. He gripped his weapon more tightly, wishing he had some space and his sniper rifle.

Steve turned his head to look from the numerous weapons trained at them towards Bucky and the others. Bucky could see the gears turning in his head, his chest rising as Steve took a deep breath.

"Let us surrender for now," Steve said quietly. "It will give them a false sense of security and give us more time to think."

"We need a diversion. Something to give us the time to get away..." Bucky was thinking out loud even as they all slowly got rid of their weapons, dropping them onto the floor and raising their hands. He left the small knife inside his boot for now - it might still come in handy. Casting a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw how close he was to the wall. If he could only get a little closer...

Dugan and Gabe followed his movements. Gabe shuffled slightly so that he was hiding Bucky's hands from the gazes of Hydra for a few moments - enough for Bucky to nick his skin with the big hunting knife he was putting on the ground. Right next to where Steve had put his shield, outer side down, so that he could kick it up and catch it within seconds. Bucky made eye contact with Gabe and voiced a few words. His comrade nodded; he understood that they had to get Steve to safety first once Bucky's magic was unleashed.

"Don't move!" The voice called out again as they had all straightened up with their hands raised, and Bucky had the uncomfortable sensation that it knew what was going on his head. He shuffled slightly, so little that it would hopefully be hardly noticeable. So close. Two more inches perhaps, not more, and he'd be touching the wall...

"So what has your extra time of thinking resulted in?" Dugan asked quietly in Steve's direction, drawing his attention. Bucky shuffled again, hoping every moment that he wouldn't find himself on the floor with a bullet in his head. One more inch.

"Well, we could-"

"QUIET!" Half an inch, but now the attention of Hydra seemed to be focused on them with renewed ferocity. Bucky tried to quiet the sound of his hammering heart. He had rarely worked a spell this big before, and the risk they were taking was immense. He'd have to loosen his magic the moment his fingers touched the wall. Steve would find out. He-

"I said, DON'T MOVE!" The voice was menacing now, and Bucky was sure he could see some fingers twitching on the triggers, eager to pull it.

"NOW! DOWN!" he yelled, flinging himself back- and downwards, trying to pull Gabe with him and using his other and to touch the wall. Gunfire erupted around them at the same times that the walls began to shake and the ceiling started crumbling. Bucky could feel something graze his cheek and heard Steve curse under his breath, but it only took seconds for them to escape back into the tunnel they'd come through.

Every breath he took was filled with dust as they stumbled along, and he tried in vain to block out the screams coming from the hall - not wanting to take any chances, he had made the entire ceiling collapse, hopefully blocking off the other exit for good as well. Steve was limping, but Gabe and Dugan seemed to be unhurt, despite the dust and small parts of debris covering them.

"Was that an earthquake?" Steve panted. Bucky was perhaps the only one able to hear the note of pain in his voice. Super serum or not, the pain itself from a wound didn't seem to be any less for him.

"Yeah, and a pretty lucky one, too." Bucky was grateful Gabe said the words and it wasn't him who had to lie to Steve. "To strike right when we needed to escape...maybe Dernier managed to set off some of his explosives."

Steve looked rather sceptical at Gabe's statement, but he didn't say anything, obviously preoccupied with his wound and having to get out of the underground system they were in.

"Let's hope that none of the other tunnels were affected," Bucky remarked. His worry wasn't totally unfounded - although he had taken care only to affect the ceiling of the large hall, he had no idea what such a large stone fall would do to the rest of the tunnels they were in. They had better get out, and fast.

They were lucky - although they had to take two detours most of the structures had evidently survived, and it didn't take them too long to return to the entrance. Upon coming closer, however, they realised that the grumbling sounds that they had been hearing weren't coming from inside the mountain.

"Shit!" Gabe yelled as he looked outside where several soldiers in Hydra garb seemed to have surrounded the remainder of the Howling Commandos.

"Do you think they planned the trap from the beginning?" Dugan asked, stroking his moustache. He gripped the one gun he had been able to grab when they fled more tightly.

"No clue." Bucky shrugged. "They might have, or they cooked it all up when we were planning what we would do, I wouldn't put it past them. Hydra is a lot of things, but stupid usually isn't one of them."

"Alright, what do we do? Just go all in, as usual?" Gabe wanted to know. Bucky shrugged, readying his own gun. Steve and Dugan nodded. They didn't need much more than that apart from a few hand signs from Steve about who had to go where.

"GO!" Steve yelled when they were all in position. Bucky stormed out next to him, trying to assess the situation as quickly as he could so that he wouldn't hurt any of their own team members. They were all invisible to him, in fact - hunkered down beneath some half-fallen stone walls that gave enough cover for now, although the Hydra soldiers were rapidly approaching.

Their 'tactic', if it could be called that, was simply to draw all their attention towards them to give the others time to breathe, something that seemed to work admirably well. Maybe _too_ well. Bucky cursed when a barrage of bullets hit the ground in front of him. Yeah, the Hydra soldiers had definitely recognised who they were and weren't taking any chances.

"Morita! Dernier! Falsworth! GET OUT OF HERE!" Steve was the closest to the three of them so they had probably heard his words. "WE'LL FOLLOW!"

To their credit, the three immediately followed his orders. Bucky knew the temptation of staying back and fighting, but as a unit they would only function if they trusted their leader enough to listen to him. And trusting Steve was easy enough, thankfully. Bucky came out of his cover and shot again, bringing another few soldiers down. At least their ranks had begun to thin remarkably; every time one of them wanted to take aim at the three fleeing men, they were taken down. Steve gestured to the side and towards the bridge. Dugan and Gabe nodded, slowly advancing around the walls until they, too, were in a position to withdraw. By now few enough soldiers were left to make it possible for Steve and Bucky to handle them on their own. Gabe and Dugan slowly made their retreat into the darkness on the other side of the river.

"C'mon Steve, let's go!" Bucky wasn't sure Steve could hear him over the noise of the gunfire, but Steve nodded. Bucky threw one last grenade at the Hydra soldiers to give Steve and him some time to escape before turning towards the bridge. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the remnants of Hydra's men.

He and Steve had just reached the middle of the bridge when the ground beneath them began to shake. A moment later a light blinded them from both ends; with a loud crash, the bridge fell apart, dropping them both into the icy waters below as the planks beneath them exploded.

The impact threw the air out of Bucky's lungs, hammering into his back like a punch. The water was freezing, and for a second he was unable to move from the shock and pain. Panic was flooding his mind, and he frantically forced his cramped muscles to begin treading the water towards where he thought up was. There was debris all around him, sharp edges of stone that cut into his skin and made it difficult to move, but he kept on going, frantic thoughts of Steve and his own survival pushing him.

Finally, his hand broke through the water surface, his head following shortly after. He gasped for air, blindly clinging on to something next to him. He had no idea what it was, his teeth chattering and his fingers having lost all feeling in them. He had no idea how far away he was from the bridge, but the water was flowing fast and clearly carrying him further and further away.

"Steve!" Bucky's voice was scratchy as if he had spent hours shouting. "STEVE! CAN YOU HEAR ME? STEVE!"

Surely, if it hadn't killed him, the blast couldn't have killed Steve either. He'd been right next to him when they fell, and although he was probably heavier than Bucky he was also stronger; he had to have survived-

"STEVE!!!!" he shouted again as loudly as he could, using his other hand to feel around in the water surrounding him. There, something that was different from the incessant gurgling of the water around him, a faint voice maybe-

"I'M HERE! STEVE, I'M HERE!" He didn't wave, for it would have been foolish in such darkness, but he almost felt like he should.

"Bucky!" This time the voice was clearer, closer. They kept shouting each other's names, as much to indicate their location as to reassure themselves that the other was still alive. Bucky almost sobbed in relief when a shape emerged from the darkness, reassuringly strong hands wrapping themselves around him. Steve's skin still retained an echo of warmth; how, Bucky had no idea, but he relished the feeling.

"I've got you, Buck, I've got you," Steve panted as he held on to both the plank and him. "You hurt?"

"N-no idea." Bucky could barely get the words out. His teeth were chattering so strongly that he thought they might break off. Now that Steve was here, the cold in his limbs came back with full might, and he wondered whether he'd ever regain the feeling in his fingers and toes again.

"We need to get out of this river, and fast." Steve was thinking out loud. Bucky recognised the tactic - he did that whenever he was worried about something and needed to keep his mind from running away. He wanted to tell Steve that everything was going to be fine, that he was just a little cold, but his tongue could barely form the words.

"C-cold." It was the only thing he could force out.

"I know, Buck, I know, I'm sorry, I'll get us out of here-" Steve babbled. Bucky felt like he should have been more concerned, but the cold was slowly freezing his thoughts, and he wondered why Steve seemed so worried.

Steve didn't stop talking, not when he gently peeled Bucky's fingers off the wood and caught him in a secure grip nor when he began swimming or finally reached the shore. Bucky, however, had long stopped listening - somewhere in the icy cold current of the river he had begun to lose himself, exhaustion creeping through his bones. By the time that Steve finally pulled him out of the water, he was already unconscious.

"Buck? Bucky. Bucky!"

Someone was calling his name and shaking his shoulders rather insistently. Bucky tried unsuccessfully to raise his arm to ward off whoever was trying to wake him up. He wanted to sleep, dammit. Steve was always awake earlier than him and had probably made his terrible coffee already and-

"Bucky, you need to wake up! Please!" Steve's voice sounded so panicked that Bucky finally gave in and opened his eyes. It was harder than usual, and he wondered why - until all the memories came flooding back, and he found himself shivering again, curled up on the ground in his almost frozen clothes in the shelter of a few rocks. Heavens above, but he was _cold_. 

"I'm awake," he mumbled. "Stop shakin' me."

Steve didn't quite stop, but at least his movements grew a little less urgent. Instead of shaking his shoulders, he started rubbing Bucky's fingers between his hands. Bucky registered with strange detachment that he barely seemed to feel them, and what he did feel _hurt_.

 "Ouch," he grimaced. Steve didn't stop, but his gaze grew even more worried from what Bucky could make out in the twilight of the approaching dawn.

"Sorry, but we gotta get you warm again, somehow. Can't have you losing any fingers or toes just because some stupid Nazis blew up a bridge underneath us."

 "You pulled me out of the water?" Bucky asked. Dumb question.

"What was I supposed to do, leave you to freeze or drown?" Steve snorted, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah, I pulled you out and found this little hideout here. I wish this was a cave or something but…well. Better than nothing, no?"

"Better than nothing, yeah," Bucky agreed. He wished he could feel Steve's hands with more than just occasional touches. He shivered again, somehow unable to stop trembling. Steve scooted closer, never stopping with his ministrations to try and bring some life back into Bucky's hands.

"Aren't you cold?" Bucky asked. Even the thought of moving seemed far too much right now. Steve shook his head.

"Not as much as you I'd bet. Guess the serum makes me produce enough warmth that the time in the river didn't matter."

"I'm j-jealous." Bucky sneezed.

"This is bad, you're not getting warm. Mind if I lie next to you?" Steve had ever been the more practical of the two of them in a way; so he didn't hesitate long when Bucky nodded, lying down on the ground next to him and wrapping him in his arms.

Steve was right - he was incredibly warm. Even through both their clothes Bucky could feel the heat, especially when Steve insisted that he take his drenched uniform jacket off and spread it over them so Bucky could feel the warmth better. Oh, it felt good. Too good, almost, so much that Bucky almost forgot how dangerous the situation was that they were still in. Freezing and out in the night, with their coms broken and no way to signal for help lest they get attacked by some Hydra stragglers.

Even though Bucky was perfectly nestled into Steve's chest with his back, he turned around, regretting the decision momentarily as icy air swept between them again. He had felt something strange...one of his hands slid over Steve's shoulder, and although he was cold, he could feel it again and even see it in the dawn: blood. And not old blood either, this was fresh.

"You're hurt." Bucky didn't even phrase it as a question.

"Got nicked by a piece of the bridge when we fell, nothing bad." Steve shrugged. "The bleeding will probably stop any minute, no need to concern yourself."

"Well, if it hasn't stopped _now_ , I am concerned. Let me see," Bucky demanded.

"It isn't bad, I promise. Just a scratch. Only broke open because I dragged you out of the water and to here." Steve sighed as Bucky only rolled his eyes and tugged at his uniform, as well as his stiff, half-frozen fingers allowed. With a little hiss Steve finally peeled his uniform off the wound, wriggling his shoulder in Bucky's direction. Bucky narrowed his eyes - the wound was definitely more than 'just a scratch' but it _was_ healing, albeit slowly. And there was little that they could do about it now anyway.

"You need to stop moving your shoulder and give it some rest," Bucky said, fingers still trailing over Steve's flesh. He had half a notion of trying to take some of the damage away and transferring it to himself; but he wasn't quite sure whether he would survive it, and as Steve said, it wasn't a life-threatening wound. Steve's fingers caught his again, stopping Bucky's hand in its movements.

"I'll be fine." Steve's voice was soft. "Our top priority is to get you warm first."

His fingers on Bucky's hand didn't move, however, and finally Bucky's gaze slid away from his shoulder and up to Steve's face. _Falling in love with Steve is so easy._ Peggy's words were fluttering around in his mind, and oh, how right she was. He would have loved Steve no matter his face or his body or anything else - but right now, the gaze from his eyes ensnared him more deeply than ever before.

"Steve..." He didn't continue as Steve slowly brought his fingers up towards his face and kissed his knuckles. Bucky's breath left him in a little sigh. He still couldn't feel much but what he did feel was amazing and-

"I'm so sorry, Bucky, I didn't know what I was doing." When he looked up again, he saw Steve with his face coloured crimson, gaze darting between his eyes and lips and fingers and obviously not knowing what to do with himself.

"You should, very definitely, keep doing it." Bucky was just the tiniest bit breathless. "Please. Steve, I-"

Steve shook his head and pulled Bucky's hand close again.

"I don't want you to think that I'm using you or that I’m just attempting to kiss whoever comes my way because of Peggy or-"

"Steve, you damn fool, shut up and fucking kiss me. Peggy's fine with it, we talked and-"

Bucky didn't get any further than that because suddenly Steve's lips were on his, hot and daring and full of life. He gasped slightly at the sheer force of it. Steve's thumb was trailing along his jaw, and Bucky's own fingers were digging into the soft skin close to Steve's throat, and then Bucky bit his lip ever so slightly, and Steve made a little noise in his throat and arched his back and-

"Why..." Steve panted when they separated again, "...why haven't we done this earlier?"

"Because they'd have beaten us to death if anybody ever found out?" Bucky asked dryly. He didn't mention the one time it had almost happened anyway, when someone had seen him step out of the _bar_ and drawn some conclusions he wasn't happy with. Steve cocked his head before kissing him again.

"You're probably right," he murmured. "God, this feels so good."

"It does," Bucky agreed, unable to leave his fingers off Steve's skin for long. The cold had changed into a distant sensation at the back of his mind, no longer important although still there. He wrapped his arms around Steve and pulled him close, smiling when he could feel his hot breath on his throat as Steve was resting his head at the base of Bucky's throat. Steve kissed his exposed skin, nipping lightly on it with his teeth, and Bucky smothered a little moan in Steve's hair. He buried his nose in the blonde strands, breathing in deeply and remembering all those times when he had imagined how it would feel.

Bucky hummed quietly when Steve just wrapped himself more tightly around him, content to simply be held in Bucky's embrace for now. That it would keep them both warm was an added bonus. They stayed like that for a long time, happy to be close to each other as Bucky slowly drifted back off to sleep.

The sun had already risen over the horizon when they could finally hear footsteps approaching. They positively jumped apart, Steve quickly tugging his uniform back on properly where Bucky had been checking his wound earlier and trying not to look like he had just spent the last hour snuggled into Bucky's chest with his lips on his skin.

Bucky rose into a crouch, although he still felt weak and cold, his movements far more sluggish than usually. But if this was Hydra...

"Cap! Bucky!" Shouts rose through the air, and Bucky sagged in relief when he heard the voices. They unmistakeably belonged to the Howling Commandos.

"Gabe! Dugan!" Steve kept calling out their names as Bucky just leaned back against the rocks behind them, trying to shrug his uniform jacket back on. It was still damp and half frozen, and he shivered even more when the cold weight settled around his shoulders.

It didn't take long for the faces of their relieved team mates to show up behind the stones. There were hugs and greetings once Bucky had laboriously climbed to his feet, everyone's relief palpable in the air. Morita'd had the wise foresight to bring a few extra blankets along and Bucky wrapped himself in one with a grateful nod.

"How'd you find us?" he asked. If he had to be honest, even in the daylight he didn't quite know where they were.

"We figured the explosion on the bridge must've thrown you into the water, so we followed the river downstream until we could see some tracks that looked suspiciously like someone had been dragged out of the water." Dugan shrugged.

Bucky was fairly sure that it couldn't have been as easy as all that - the frozen ground made tracks exceptionally hard to read - but he accepted the explanation for now, just glad that they had been found.

"We should hurry and get back to camp," Steve noted, frowning a little. "Bucky almost froze to death, and he needs to get warm as soon as possible."

"Don't act like I'm the only one who's slightly inconvenienced here." Bucky snorted, elbowing Steve in the ribs. " _You_ were more injured than I was, even if the wound finally stopped bleeding."

That, of course, led to another barrage of worried questions as they slowly made their way back to camp. Bucky was glad to let Steve reflect most of them; the bone deep exhaustion creeping through him still made it hard to think straight, and he was glad when they finally arrived and a hot cup with some of the last remnants of their tea was pressed into his hands. It had been much too close of a call for his taste.


	4. Chapter 4

"I do what Captain America can't. Or at least what he can't be _seen_ doing." Bucky's tone was flat, his eyes hard as steel. He could have sworn that Phillips flinched a little behind his table, although the motion was so well hidden that he could barely detect it.

"I'm not sure Captain Rogers-" he began, but Bucky cut him off, knowing that it might have consequences that weren't all too nice for him. However, he was simply too angry to care.

" _Steve_ understands well enough what I'm talking about," he said sharply. "He might not be entirely happy with it, but then, he doesn't have to be as long as it gets us all back alive." Bucky didn't mention that the reason why Steve wasn't happy was more about forcing Bucky to do all the dirty work than the fact that the dirty work had to be done.

"It isn't up him to decide, though. You should be on your way home, Sergeant Barnes, honourably discharged instead of fighting this war in the trenches that can get real dirty real quick." Colonel Phillips shook his head, looking almost resigned, as if this war was slowly but surely pulling the life out of him. Bucky understood this feeling more than Phillips might ever know.

"You think I don't know that? ...Sir?" he added belatedly. Despite his anger, Phillips _was_ still his superior. Not even being Captain America's second-in-command could save him from any disciplinary action. "I've spilled enough blood to see just how dirty it can get."

"I presume you have." Phillips sighed. "Fine, I will let you continue, Sergeant Barnes. But if there is anything, _anything_ at all that makes you think you aren't the right one for the job anymore, you will let me know. And this is an order. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Bucky saluted. They both knew he wouldn't - keeping Steve save would always take priority for him, no matter his own desires. Sometimes he dreamed of going home, of seeing his family, seeing _Becca_ again, and not having to worry about who of his comrades would be the next that he'd have to bury. But then he thought of what he would have to leave behind, and there was no way he could - not with the Howlies still fighting, not with Steve and them risking their lives out here. It seemed utterly wrong.

"Dismissed, sergeant." Phillips watched as Bucky walked out of the tent, taking a deep breath once he was outside.

He and the Howling Commandos had been doing their Hydra runs for several months now, their missions leading them all over Europe. It had taken them a few more rounds to fall into a sort of working order, find out what exactly everyone's specialities were and how to best incorporate them into the team. Steve had proven more adept than Bucky thought at leading the commandos - Bucky never doubted that he was a good man, but good men didn't always make good commanders. However, Steve knew how to use his men's strengths thoughtfully and make plans that had actual chances of working, even if they contained an intolerable amount of him leading charges or carrying out tasks that would be too dangerous for a normal soldier.

Where Steve was the light, Bucky was the shadow. There was a strange sort of irony there, Bucky figured - his entire life he had been scared of the darkness inside him, the darkness hidden in his magic that had seemingly set him on a path to destruction long ago. And now, when he was making the most use of it was also the time that he felt the most reassured about using it.

He had evolved to be the team's 'scout', with duties that entailed as much scouting as they also did cleaning the way for the others to come after him. Sniping or using the special training that he had received back in camp - it didn't matter, as long as he could assure the safety of everyone with him. He often lay awake at night, wondering if he'd ever forget the stares from dead eyes or the red on his hands.

Colonel Phillips had not been happy when he had found out, especially not after the latest mission. Bucky shifted his injured arm that was still in its sling - the bullet had gone straight through his flesh without hitting anything major, but it had bled enough to make the others worry.

"How's your arm?" Bucky looked up to see Peggy approaching. He wasn't sure whether she'd listened in on his conversation with Phillips or not. He shrugged.

"Healing. Should be fine in a few days, I hope."

"The doctors would probably disagree with you about that," Peggy smiled. "But anyway, I won't argue with you. Care to follow me?"

Bucky nodded and fell into step beside her. It was still strange to be so close to her without Steve around; of course Peggy had noticed that something had happened between them the moment they had returned from their second mission, still half drenched and with their teeth chattering. That didn't mean, however, that she and Bucky had magically turned into best friends; there were enough times when Bucky still didn't know what exactly he should say to her when they met. They were both still learning.

Peggy led him towards the periphery of the camp, where the training grounds were. It was mysteriously empty, whether by pure chance or on Peggy's orders, Bucky couldn't quite tell. A small tent had been erected at the side of the shooting ground they were going to now, and Peggy unceremoniously dragged him inside before closing the tent flaps behind them. She pointed at the table in front of her.

"Your new weapon, Sergeant Barnes."

Bucky stepped closer, frowning at first at what he was seeing. It was a sniper rifle, but unlike any that he had used before. He felt an echo of the thrill run through him that he had felt the first time he’d seen Howard Stark’s flying car and all his other marvels; he had always been so intrigued by technology and what it might be able to do some day. It wasn't even so much the rifle’s looks, but the way it felt to him, even without touching - something was different about it, something that he couldn't quite put into words yet. After a nod from Peggy, he reached out to touch the black metal.

He immediately withdrew his fingers with a low gasp. The rifle was thrumming with magic - Peggy's he guessed, but there might as well be others mixed in. It was the most powerful artefact he had ever touched.

"Howard Stark made it," Peggy offered as an explanation. "He infused it with some of his own magic, so it is unlikely to ever jam or malfunction - his magic isn't strong but perfect for such small things. And I made it virtually unbreakable."

Bucky swallowed and reached out again, this time willing himself to hold still when his fingers touched the rifle. The weapon almost thrummed under his grip, especially when he picked it up to examine it more closely. It was of excellent make; Bucky was sure that he had never held a better weapon, and if what Peggy said was true, it would serve him well in the fights to come.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "This is..."

"One of the finest weapons ever made," Peggy nodded. "And I think it is in the best hands with you, Sergeant Barnes. The best way you can repay us with is by keeping Steve alive."

Bucky nodded.

"I'll do my best. Thank you, Peggy."

Peggy smiled a little at that and opened her arm. Bucky embraced her, awkwardly at first, then relaxing slightly. It became easier and easier to accept Peggy at Steve's side, especially when they were working together like this. When they stepped back, Peggy pressed a kiss into his hair and gave him another smile, this one warm and grateful.

"Thank you, too, Bucky. I'm glad Steve finally realised what you are to him."

"I wish it would stop him from getting himself into situations he can't get out of without help," Bucky grumbled, but of course they both knew that a man like that wouldn't really be Steve anymore.

*

The next mission was waiting for them as soon as Bucky's arm was healed again. Nobody remarked on how quickly the healing seemed to have gone, although Bucky was fairly sure that the others had to have noticed. In contrast to their earlier missions that had specifically been targeted at Hydra, this time they would be supporting their troops at the front where it was most needed.

Bucky had forgotten that Steve had never seen the true front until now, not until they landed and the destruction and despair that hung over everything like a cloud almost hit them in the face. Steve stopped dead in his tracks, his grip tightening around the straps of his shield. Bucky knew him well enough to be able to read the shock in his eyes.

"C'mon, we gotta head out." He grasped Steve by the arm and headed towards where the leader of the unit was already waiting for them.

They wasted little time with explanations. The task was quite simple in itself, really - the Nazi forces were too strong and too many, especially with some new weapons they had developed, and no other troops suitably large were close enough, so the Howling Commandos had been sent.

"What kind of weapons are they?" Steve wanted to know. He had recovered quickly from his first shock, at least outwardly - although Bucky knew him better than that.

"Tanks. Big, like nothing I've ever seen before. And they seem to be shooting..." Captain Dubois' eyes darted back and forth between Steve and the others. Clearly he wasn't sure just how much he could divulge without seeming like a lunatic. He swallowed. "...blue light. They don't care what they hit, us or their own people. But whatever the light touches it just...disintegrates. Nothing left. Not even dust."

Dubois shuddered. Bucky took a deep breath, trying to steady the minuscule shaking in his hands. He remembered the light only too well.

"I've seen that light before," he said quietly. Steve turned around, his eyes widening in question. Bucky nodded. "Yeah, at Azzano. It's...I don't know anything that could resist it."

So many dead that night, so many dead in the weeks after, so many broken and gone and- Bucky consciously had to shake himself out of the spiral of his thoughts. It was hard, but he'd had far too much practise at it now. Steve looked at him with a strange expression in his eyes that almost made Bucky angry. _He_ wasn't the one who needed Steve's sympathy; the ones who had died needlessly and those left to mourn at home did, much more than him.

"We'll do what we can," Steve said, confidence oozing out of him. It was something that Bucky had observed over and over - regardless whether deserved or not, but seeing Captain America go into battle with the utter conviction that they would win usually did more for soldiers' morale than any speech or other words of encouragement could have done.

Steve marched forwards to where the tanks had appeared the last time; no doubt they would arrive again come nightfall, as they had on previous days according to Captain Dubois. Nobody was sure why they withdrew shortly after the break of dawn, if it was for recharge or other reasons, but as the captain explained, they wouldn't have survived for so long if they hadn't.

The destruction they witnessed at the site was devastating. Buildings hadn't only been torn down and destroyed by shells, they were simply gone. It was almost impossible to believe that humans had lived here once. A thick, acrid stench hung over everything: of lightning and fire and, above all, death. Bucky tried not to gag at the smell.

"Where do the tanks usually come from?" Steve wanted to know.

"East, right behind the hills," Dubois said. "We never managed to get far into their territory; the compound is too well defended. It would be suicide with the few soldiers that we have."   

"Nobody is accusing you of anything," Steve said in a calm tone, briefly gripping Dubois' shoulder. "You did well, considering that you have kept your unit alive until this day."

Even though they were of the same rank, Captain Dubois seemed to be relieved to hear Steve's words. The magic of Captain America; Bucky shook his head to himself.

"It's too late for a direct assault on their base, cap," Gabe said, staring up critically into the sky. He was right, there was only an hour remaining, maybe less, until the sun would set. Not enough to organise everyone and get to the base in time.

"Yes." Steve nodded. "We'll try and build up our defenses here, so that we can get the best shot at these things as soon as they come, before they hurt any more people."

And with that, it was decided - Dubois seemed the type who was relieved that someone else was taking the reins over now and gladly complied with all of Steve's suggestions. The faces of the men in Dubois' unit were battle-weary and tired, and Bucky's heart ached when he looked at them. He knew the feeling all too well - the seeming endlessness of war, of death and too much rain and too little to eat and too many soldiers on the other side. When you were this deep into the daily drill, larger things slowly seemed to lose significance whilst smaller things gained in it. Dreams like going home, like the war being over became just that, simple dreams. What became more important were the rays of the sun after a long rainy day or that last bit of chocolate someone had managed to procure from somewhere, the taste of sugar more real than the idea of a loved one's embrace.

They listened to Steve's orders and accepted them, although there was still weariness in their motions. Bucky wondered if Steve would be able to rouse them with one of his speeches or through leading by example; but he wasn’t sure, no matter how much he knew about Captain America's magic, so different from his own.

The plan was rather simple, really. Dernier was supposed to plant explosives in the few remaining houses so that they would be able to block the tank's way and trap it; then Bucky and Gabe would try and draw the tank's fire to somewhere else whilst Steve and the other Howlies would attempt to destroy the tank from behind. The remaining soldiers of the unit would fight the Nazi troops that usually came with the assault.

They got into position just as the sun fell. Bucky thought he could hear the rumble of the tank far earlier than he could see it. The sight of it appearing from behind the next hilltop was so similar to Azzano that his heart stopped beating for a moment. He didn't know whether it was the exact same tank that had obliterated half his unit in Azzano or whether it was a different one, but at this point it didn't matter.

Bucky cast a glance around to see whether all the soldiers were still hidden in the ruins as they had discussed; with a satisfied nod he realised that he couldn't make out a single one of them, helped by the beginning darkness. Now they just had to hope that the Germans wouldn't notice anyone either, or at least not until there was no way back for their tank. Bucky put his hand on the wall in front of him, feeling the blood pulsate beneath his skin. Dernier had set up his explosives, but Bucky had volunteered to help - the combined effect of his magic and the bombs should make sure that the tank couldn't escape. He wished he could get his hands on the tank itself and disable it that way.

The tank slowly crept forwards, seconds stretching until they felt as long as hours. Bucky realised that he was holding his breath and expelled it quickly, praying that nobody would make a mistake and show themselves too soon. He could hear faint German shouts - those would be the troops accompanying their war machine. Bucky slowly followed the tank through the ruins, making sure he wouldn't be seen and waiting for Dernier's signal. There it was - a faint rumble in the earth that indicated the first of his bombs going off. Bucky lost no time with putting his hand on the wall in front of him, blood seeping from his fingertips. Then he _pushed_.

 Magic flowed through him, powerful and strong, rippling through the stone and bringing down the walls within seconds, also cutting off at least half of the soldiers from the rest of their troops. Bucky frowned; he'd have to remember to tell their men to take care that those Nazis wouldn't attack their backs.

He exchanged a quick gaze with Gabe next to him and a few hand signs. Gabe nodded and pointed at the other side of the tank and then wriggled his fingers, to signal Bucky's magic. Bucky laughed a little and nodded back. Together they made their way past the other Howlies and a few of their soldiers, exchanging the occasional bout of gunfire with some Germans.

Bucky signalled some of their own men to indicate that a number of Nazis had been left behind and that they should take care of their flanks, hoping the message would be passed through. With Steve he exchanged nothing but a quick grip of their wrists; it was all they needed, that and a little nod were as a good as a verbal promise to try and stay alive to the best of their abilities.

Gabe was the first to arrive at the point closest to the tank where there were no men. It had begun firing, coming close to demolishing one of the enclosing walls already.

 _You ready for this?_ Bucky signed towards Gabe. His friend nodded. Bucky took a deep breath, looking down at the weapon in his hands. He had left his new rifle behind this time; this mission had called for heavier equipment. He shouldered the rocket launcher with Gabe at his back, ready to load it. They only had a window of a few seconds to do this.

Bucky raised a few his fingers to signal Gabe. They loaded, jumped up and fired in the direction of the tank - and then ran away as fast as they could, as the tank predictably shot the spot where they had just been standing not long after. They repeated this for as long as they could, utterly absorbed in their tasks and hoping that Steve and the other Howling Commandos would act fast. Only a tiny mistake, a stumble, a second of slowness, and they'd be done for.

Both Gabe and he were breathing heavily when a loud explosion finally shook the ground, a wave of heat blowing over them. Risking a glance, Bucky saw what looked like Steve emerging from the smoking wreckage of the tank with his shield. He looked like a hero out of the old story books for a moment, not a living creature but something out of a legend, walking confidently out of the flames of the monster he had just slain.

The sound of gunfire behind them destroyed the illusion as quickly as it had started. Bullets smacked into the wall next to Bucky, and he cursed as he dropped down and rolled over, Gabe next to him doing the same. It was sheer luck that neither of them got hit. It took a moment for the realisation to set in what the bullets _meant_.

 "Shit!" Bucky yelled. Where their soldiers had been supposed to have their backs there were now a dozen Germans, guns all trained at them. No sign of their own men.

Bucky took the rifle from his back, slapping in a new magazine before gritting this teeth. If he and Gabe were alone, this would get dirty. A few quick hand signs exchanged with his friend and they were off, running in different directions to divide the Nazis' attention between them and weaken their firepower. Bucky fired two rapid bursts before ducking into cover again, putting his hand on the ground beneath him. It was too solid for him to work his magic; and even if it weren’t, he wouldn't have been able to make it open up right beneath the Nazis; his precision wasn't good enough for that. Two more quick bursts before he ran to another bit of cover, pulse beating loudly in his ears. A bullet nicked his leg, but he barely noticed the little burst of pain, too intent on the task before him. He dropped two more Nazis before having to change the magazine.

It was a matter of a few motions, every bullet in the new magazine marked with his blood just like in the old one. Marking them had become almost a ritual for him now, something that he did every night when alone in a tent, where nobody could see. The small pain from breaking through his skin calmed him, helped him focus like little else and brought a strange sense of peace to his actions as he knew that the little pain now might save lives the next day.

As it very clearly did today.

Bucky jumped up to shoot again and change to a new hiding place when he could hear a shout, just faintly over the gunfire. Steve was there, and with him the other Howling Commandos, falling into the German's backs as they had been concentrating mostly on Bucky and Gabe, who Bucky could see panting behind another bit of wall. At least he seemed unarmed, which Gabe confirmed with a few handsigns in Bucky's direction.

The Nazis weren't exactly quick work - even divided up amongst all of them it took effort to take them down. These were obviously well-trained men, not random soldiers recruited just a few months ago who had barely been through basic training.

The silence that descended after the last gunshots sounded out was eerie. By now it was completely dark, only the light of the fires from the explosions illuminating the ruins of the town. Dugan was the first one to call out, but there was no answer. Gabe and Bucky exchanged a quick look before hurrying to Steve's side, who had started looking through the wreckage at the points where the rest of their men were supposed to be.

They found the first dead one not far away, hand still pressed to a chest drenched in blood. After over half an hour of searching, they had recovered only two survivors, one of which seemed to be in a bad state, so bad that not even Bucky thought he could do something about it, not without killing himself in the process. They sat in the shadows of one of the few rooms that hadn't been fully destroyed, lit by a small oil lamp they had been able to procure, their only source of light.

The other soldier they had found was asleep, breathing heavily but hopefully on his way to survival; in a moment when Steve hadn't been looking, Bucky had carefully put his bloodied fingers on the man's skin and transferred some of the worst effects of the injuries to himself, just enough to let him survive if he could get proper help soon. He had swayed afterwards, Gabe catching him in his arms, but the weakness would be only temporary.

The other soldier, however...Steve was kneeling next to him, looking lost as the man struggled to breathe. He had to be barely in his twenties, if that, eyes wide and frightened as he struggled against the pain and stubbornly clung to life.

"Brighton..." he whispered. "Is there anybody from Brighton? Please, someone from home..."

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance. Falsworth was from York and the rest...Steve grasped the man's hand, looking him in the eyes as he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, soldier...what is your name?" It seemed to take a moment for his answer to sink into the man's mind before he replied.

"George," he said quietly. "George Boulders."

"George." Steve smiled, a wrong smile that painted hurt into every line of his face. He grasped his hand more tightly, as if he could keep the fleeting life back in George's body by sheer will alone. "I've been to Brighton, once," he continued carefully. Bucky wasn't sure whether it was true or not; it might have happened during Steve's time in the UK before he had come to mainland Europe, or it might not have. It didn't really matter now anyway.

"It's beautiful. The...the beach..." George coughed, his entire body spasming in pain.

"Yes. The beach." Steve shifted, carefully transferring George's head so he was leaning against him, with Steve's arm wrapped around him, trying in vain to provide as much warmth as he could.

"We used to play catch with the waves..." George's voice was growing faint. "I was never fast enough."

"I know." Steve hummed something beneath his breath as George's words faded into undecipherable mumblings. He cradled his head, continuing to hold his hand until the young soldier finally expelled one last, shuddering breath and his chest didn't rise again. Steve kept holding him for a while longer before closing his eyes and saying a few words underneath his breath. The motion with which he put the corpse back on the floor was unendingly gentle.

Silence reigned for a moment, suffocatingly heavy. Steve kept staring at the dead body next to him, eyes wide and unseeing, before he visibly shook himself.

"What happened?" he finally asked.

 "I don't know. Nobody knows. Maybe the message that they had some Germans in their backs didn't come through, or they made a mistake somewhere or...I don't know." Bucky shook his head helplessly, not knowing what else to say. He had mulled the question over and over in his head but had not come to a satisfying answer. They would never know - which didn't change the fact that they were surrounded by dozens of corpses of men who had been alive not long ago.

"It doesn't matter why, we need to get out of here as soon as we can," Dugan stated, although his voice was far more quiet and subdued than usual. "As soon as dawn breaks, in fact."

Steve gave him a nod, eyes still trained on the corpse next to him. Bucky eyes travelled to him before going back to Dugan.

"I'll make the call to Peggy," he offered gently, knowing that Steve wasn't in the position to do any of the like yet. Dugan, like Steve, gave him a grateful nod, offering him his radio. Bucky's own had gotten destroyed at some point in the battle today; he couldn't even remember properly when.

Bucky stepped out of the house, barely looking where his feet where taking him. He stumbled over some debris and almost fell, the sharp stone cutting up his skin as he caught himself before tumbling to the ground. The pain was immediate and acute, a sudden contrast to the numbness in his mind that he felt reverberating through his entire body. He was glad he couldn't see the red glistening on his skin; it would have reminded him of George's corpse far too much.

He stopped, taking a deep breath before walking another step. It took him far too long to operate the radio, his thoughts as slow as his fingers. They kept shaking and slipping off the radio even when he willed them to be still. Bucky wanted to scream in frustration, barely resisting the urge to throw he radio on the ground and destroy it. With all his power, Steve's super soldier serum and the skills they had between them there was still nothing they could do. He had seen so many endings, had thought that they could finally make a difference now, but nothing had changed. Death still came and plucked away those they were fighting for, with no regards to their screams and struggles. He wished once again that he could do more than to destroy and take away.

Talking to Peggy was difficult, and for once he was glad that the radio took the depth from his voice. She didn't ask how Steve was doing, but he heard the question anyway; there was little that he could tell her apart from 'he'll be fine'. Hopefully. One day.

Bucky had just put the radio away again when he heard footsteps approaching behind him. He turned, knowing who he'd see before he did - everyone in their group had their very own specific way of moving, and Steve was no exception, especially when he wanted his approach to be heard. Bucky still didn't take being startled very well.

"Steve."

"Hey, Buck." The ghost of a smile travelled across Steve's lips. Bucky just waited, not replying anything. He knew that Steve would speak without prompting once he was ready to do so.

"Thanks for calling in to the camp," Steve said carefully. "I'm sorry that I didn't...should've thought of it sooner."

"No problem." Bucky shrugged slightly, waiting for Steve to get to the point of why he was really outside with him. Steve looked around a little, and Bucky wished he could see the expression in his eyes.

"Do you think the soldiers here will be buried one day?" Steve asked, his voice very quiet. "I don't- it doesn't seem right to just leave them lying around like this."

"I don't know." And it was true, Bucky didn't. War followed its own strange rules; even if you knew them, you sometimes couldn't tell what would happen. He had seen villagers bury week-old corpses before, had seen men rotting in the sun or carted away to orderly graves. He didn't know what would happen to the soldiers who had died tonight; maybe, somewhere someone would come and give them a final rest. Maybe. Hopefully.

"We should radio it in. Maybe they can send a unit out to help dig or transport them back or-"

"Steve." Bucky finally stopped Steve's endless rambling that would, as he was well aware of, lead them nowhere. He reached out and put a hand on Steve's arm, his touch conveying what his words could not. He tried to make his voice gentle. "Steve."

Steve pulled away from him, although not roughly. Bucky knew what was coming, and braced himself for it, because he had seen it far too many times before. Still, seeing it on Steve hurt more than anything else.

"I should have saved them," Steve said quietly, but his voice slowly growing in strength and volume. "I should have saved them, Buck. They believed in me, they thought they could go home after this, I should have _saved_ them, not let them die alone and afraid in the dark. I SHOULD HAVE SAVED THEM!"

The last one was screamed out as Steve kicked a rock into the night and then punched the remnants of a wall with his bare fist. It was, perhaps, the hardest lesson of all that Bucky'd had to learn in this war so far - you couldn't save everyone. Not if you were James Buchanan Barnes with magic in his blood, and not even if you were Steve Rogers, filled to the brim with a serum that turned you superhuman. He had so wished for Steve never to have to learn this.

He let Steve rage for a while, even though his heart broke every time he slammed his fist into the concrete. Bucky cringed when he could hear Steve's bones crunch under the force of his anger and helpless frustration, but he only walked over to him once Steve's rage was mostly spent and he was just standing there, shivering from exhaustion and adrenaline.

Steve turned when he heard Bucky approaching and didn't say anything, not even when Bucky wrapped him in his arms like he had done the day his mother died. Steve began sobbing against his chest. Bucky let him cry, even when they were both nestled on the ground in the corner of the destroyed wall, his fingers digging into Steve's back and lips pressed into his hair to show him that he wasn't alone.

"How do you do it?" Steve finally asked, his voice brittle as he was trying to wipe his eyes dry. "How do you not break over and over again?" He was well aware that as a sergeant Bucky had seen, had _commanded_ , more than his own fair share of death.

"I do," Bucky told him. "We all do. We just can't let the cracks swallow us whole."

Steve nodded, but he still looked lost, even as he tried to clean himself up before they went back inside to join the others again. Nobody said a word or asked where they'd been. They had all dealt with their first real meetings with death differently, and it was one of the most private things any of them had left. It just wasn't right to ask after it.

*

Death and mud became their constant companions for the next months. It began wearing down on them, slowly at first but more and more noticeably soon. The first time Bucky's gaze didn't even stop on the corpses in front of him but kept scanning the horizon he felt as if he had crossed a line that there would be no coming back from. He hoped Steve would never need to step over it, but at the same time he feared for what would happen if he did. The guilt racking Steve was almost palpable at times, seemed to ooze through the stars and stripes and into his thoughts and bake itself into his skin where even Bucky's and Peggy's kisses couldn't seem to dislodge it.

All they could do was to keep pulling him onwards and onwards, show him all the good that he _was_ able to do. And despite what Steve might have thought, there was a lot of it. It was a powerful feeling to have soldiers look at them and see hope crossing their eyes for the first time in weeks when the Commandos walked past them to help in their war efforts. Like his fellow Howlies, Bucky never fully thought he deserved their hope and admiration; he was a soldier like all the others, the only difference being that he had a little more experience and skill and a dark magic that helped where things might sometimes have seemed hopeless. Still, if he could save even one more soul from ending up dead or as an experiment of the Hydra or Nazi scientists it was already worth it.

The trust that was placed in the Howling Commandos by most soldiers and even                                                higher-ranking officers amongst the Allied forces was humbling.

"We're just fighters like you," Bucky told a young private as they were huddled inside a ravine, waiting for the sound of explosions beyond them to pass. Earth rained down on them, but none of the grenades had found their way to them. Yet. "Trying to stay alive like everyone else in this damn war."

The youth who couldn't have seen his twentieth year yet looked up at him with wide eyes, his hero worship so obvious that Bucky shifted uncomfortably in his position.

"But you're _Sergeant Barnes_ ," he said, the same worship tingeing his voice. "You survived the Nazis, and now you're Captain America's right hand. Everyone in our unit wants to be like you."

Bucky was surprised at that; he knew that quite a few soldiers would have given a lot to be like Steve, to receive the serum and become supersoldiers. But that people wanted to be like him? It was new and strange and he was almost unable to wrap his head around it.

"Why?" he couldn't help but ask. The soldier didn't even hesitate when answering.

"Because you got to where you are now by skill, not just by luck," he told him. "You're a sniper, one of the best there is, and everyone knows that you earned your rank by merit. To survive Nazi torture and still be so good that you are working alongside Captain America now..."

Bucky opened his mouth to explain that he had been friends with Steve ever since they had both been little, that it had been luck first and foremost that was the reason he was here now, that although he _did_ possess skill there were plenty of other men (and some women) who did too, but then he closed it again without saying anything. Destroying the youth's glorified picture of the Howling Commandos and himself suddenly seemed like a crime, one that there was no necessity to commit. Perhaps his admiration would even push him to greater deeds on his own, who knew.

"I'm still just a soldier," he said instead, clapping the young man on the shoulder. "Started off the same as you."

The soldier nodded before flinching at the sound of another bomb exploding not far from them. The sounds had been coming closer, and Bucky knew they couldn't stay here for much longer - the Germans were clearly advancing. He looked to the side where he could see Dugan and Gabe hunkering down next a few more soldiers, a mix of French, English and American groups; the remnants of the units that the Germans had bombed out of a small town the day before.  

Bucky looked along the ravine from where they were sitting, catching Dugan's gaze before they quietly exchanged hand signs. Dugan nodded at his suggestions, and they began moving on Bucky's signal towards the right and further away from where the bombs were falling. Bucky knew that the time for an all-out assault would have to be soon; they couldn't let the Germans advance any further, but the trench warfare that had been going on for days over here wasn't doing the Allied forces any good at the moment.

They ended up in a trench much closer to their enemies. Their radios were still relatively useless with the level of noise around them, so the Howling Commandos and the leading officers of the current unit they were with hunkered down together to talk through the next steps of the plan. There was no need for overly elaborate fighting strategies since any plan would dissolve to a certain extent once the action started. The important thing was to get the framework right so that everyone still knew what to do once things began going to hell; Steve was becoming more and more adept at this part of planning. With Morita’s help they had improved the coms enough to be able to communicate with each other even when the disturbances would have otherwise been too much.

It all went well until it didn’t.

The Nazis and Hydra soldiers were fighting with a single-minded ferocity that was only growing stronger the closer to apparent defeat they were. The troops the Howling Commandos were with were weary and broken down by weeks of hard combat, and not even the presence of Captain America could infuse them with enough stamina to be able to win against the hordes of Germans.

“We’ll have to retreat,” Bucky said through the coms, hoping the other Howlies would understand his words even through all the gunfire.

“No.” Steve’s voice was breathless from exertion as he was in the middle of the fight. Bucky grit his teeth as he adjusted the sight of his rifle and took out another two soldiers attacking the group Gabe and Dugan were in. He’d have to switch to close combat soon, but for now he made sure to kill as many as he could from his sniping position. “We need to hold this line at all cost. The Germans-“

“The Germans will kill us all if we keep this up,” Bucky grit out between his teeth. There was a _reason_ that he was the team sergeant. It was to balance out Steve’s recklessness when he became too caught in the shell of Captain America, trying to save everyone since he didn’t have the experience necessary yet to call a hopeless situation when he saw one. Or, at least, that was _one_ of the reasons Bucky was team sergeant. “Steve, we need to retreat.”

“There might yet be a way.” Dernier’s voice in French cackled through the radio, and Bucky didn’t like what he was hearing in it. “There are a few new explosives that I worked on with Stark, and we’re sure they’re pretty effective, could take out quite a lot of people, so if we just get these amongst the troops-“

“Jacques, you are not going to go behind enemy lines just to plant your explosives.” Bucky released another two shots, missing his goal with one of them in his concern and growing anger. They had underlined the importance of discipline and following orders again and again. It was what good units were built upon during war. They could not win without it.

“Nobody will see me. I’ll be quick, especially among these houses. In and out in a second.”

“No!” Bucky yelled, although he could feel in his bones that it was too late. He cursed, training the scope of his sniper rifle to follow the small form making its way through the bombed-out ruins of the village. Dernier _was_ good, there was no doubt about it, but there was no way that he was good _enough_. 

“I’ll follow him,” Steve said through the com. Bucky resisted the urge to scream. No wonder that the discipline in their unit was falling apart when their commanding officer didn’t even follow his own orders. Bucky sniped three more soldiers who were standing too close to Dernier’s path not to see him.

“You’ll be even more obvious than him with your uniform,” he spat out as he reloaded, then aimed at a fourth soldier. Calling out a superior officer where their soldiers could hear it was usually regarded as one of the worst sins – officers like the team sergeant he was were supposed to raise their concerns in private, without undermining their superior’s authority in public – but it was only the Howlies who could listen in at the moment. Steve doing such stupid things was undermining his authority well enough on his own already.

“Exactly,” came Steve’s reply via the radio. Bucky groaned. “I’ll draw the fire so that Dernier can plant his explosives without being seen.”

At least Bucky remembered to switch off the radio before letting out a string of his best choice of curse words.

“Dugan, Gabe, Falsworth, make sure that nobody gets killed in this act of insanity,” he ordered when he finally switched the little device Morita and Stark had improved on again. “Morita, you keep their backs free with the rest of the Allied forces.”

The noises he received in reply were affirmative. Bucky battled with himself whether he should go down and help the rest of the Commandos in their impossible task, but decided against it – at least here he had a good overview over the situation and could pick off single targets that might become too much of a danger to Dernier and Steve.

Their plan seemed to work far better than he had feared at first – Dernier was quietly making his way into the German forces, planting one explosive after the other that he would presumably light with Howard Stark’s newest version of a remote detonator once he was done. Steve had, predictably, drawn most of the fire onto himself and was fending it off with the help of the other Commandos. Bucky tried to drop as many soldiers as he could from his vantage point, his bloodied bullets finding their goal without fault.

When it happened, it did so swiftly and without warning. Bucky had quickly checked on Steve, then dropped another five soldiers with his rifle who had been standing perilously close to Dernier’s path. When he checked back to Steve, he only saw a crumpled form on the ground instead of a fighting man and Dugan grabbing the shield to protect both of them. A cold wave of dread rolled over him.

“Steve!”

“He was hit by a bullet ricocheting off a wall behind us,” Falsworth said. He sounded breathless and slightly overwhelmed. Bucky could only hear screaming in his mind, but he knew someone had to keep a cool mind. “Hit him right in the neck, right where the suit isn’t bulletproof, a bit towards the right at the shoulder.”

Bucky swallowed. His hands were shaking; he didn’t even notice until he missed two shots in a row as Dernier continued on his way.

“Is he-“

“Still alive, somehow,” Falsworth reported back. “We’ll do our best to keep it that way. Your orders, sarge?”

“Get him out of there as fast as possible. Dernier’s almost done; I’ll try and keep his back free until he can return and we can blow them all to hell.” Bucky was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. Everything seemed distant, unreal somehow, as if he were watching himself through a wall of glass.

“Roger that.” Bucky watched as Gabe and Falsworth were trying to drag Steve to safety, applying pressure to the wound. Bucky could only hope that the bullet hadn’t hit one of the major arteries. His gaze travelled to Dernier, who had just planted the last of his explosive charges and was now trying to get away from behind the German lines as quickly as possible; as much as Bucky wanted to assist Dugan and the others in getting Steve out, he had to make sure that Dernier made it out alive since he was the one with the remote detonator.

By some miracle there were no more casualties amongst the Howling Commandos during their retreat. Dernier made it out, if only just - and because Bucky killed the last two Germans who had been taking aim at him, providing just enough time for the others to drag Steve to safety too, before Dernier detonated the charges. Fireballs rose into the air, ferocious enough that Bucky could feel the heat on his face even at his distance. The remaining few Nazi soldiers were in disordered ranks and posed no problems to the remnants of the allied forces who had a new force of fury to propel them forward after seeing Captain America fall.

 Bucky made sure that none of the Germans would pose any significant problems before packing up his rifle and running down towards where the others were looking after Steve. Dugan had already ordered a medevac – of course one of the few new medevac helicopters would be sent for Steve, no expense to be spared in order to save the life of Captain America. Bucky ran as fast as his feet allowed, not paying any attention to the soldiers wanting to talk to him and with his own breath resounding loudly in his ears.

“Where is he?” he asked Gabe when he finally spotted the Commandos. Gabe wordlessly pointed him in the direction where Steve was lying on his side, Falsworth having his hand pressed against the wound with a field bandage from the one first aid kit they had been able to dig out. There was far too much blood, clotting in Steve’s clothes and on his skin, a stark contrast to the ghostly pallor of his face.

“Stevie, hey. Steve.” Bucky dropped to his knees next to his friend. In this moment he wasn’t seeing Captain America, not even a soldier, but simply the small boy he had grown up with and who he had nursed through dozens of illnesses and injuries, again and again.

Bucky put a finger to Steve’s cheek, watching as Steve’s eyelids fluttered as if he could feel the touch, although he remained unconscious. He allowed himself the shortest of moments in which he ran his fingers down Steve’s cheek and the edge of his mouth, remembering the last time he had kissed those lips the previous night. If anyone saw what he was doing, nobody remarked on it; Bucky had long believed that at least a few of the Commandos suspected what was going on between him and Steve, but nobody had attempted to start a conversation. Yet. For now, there were more important things anyway.

His fingers wandered down towards where the wound was, and he shuddered again as he realized that any normal soldier would already be dead. The super serum was the only thing keeping Steve alive right now. Using his own blood, he began to feel inside, wondering if there was anything he could do with his magic that would help Steve survive.

“Sarge. Don’t overdo it.” He looked up, seeing Morita’s face with his brow creased in worry. He knew what Bucky was about to do, knew that Bucky would willingly run the risk of losing his own life just to preserve Steve’s. “We can’t get the two of you out of here when you’re hanging on to your life by a thread.”

Bucky nodded, but most of his concentration was still with Steve. He wished he knew more about medicine; the bullet had ripped through so much flesh and muscle that he didn’t even know where to start, wasn’t quite sure what the most critical parts were. He took a deep breath and released some of his magic, felt it flow through Steve and take some of the effects away that were currently ravaging through his body. He couldn’t heal injuries, couldn’t force any of the destroyed parts of Steve’s body to knit themselves together again, but he could make sure that the effects weren’t as severe as they were now, could take away some of the weakness that was threatening Steve’s life now. He kept drawing more and more-

“That’s enough now, sarge. Bucky. Can you hear me? It’s-“ A hand dropped onto his shoulder and forcibly pulled him away, disrupting the flow of magic. When he opened his eyes, swaying with weakness, he saw Gabe’s concerned gaze.

Steve groaned slightly and tossed his head a little at the same moment as Bucky mumbled “I’m fine” in the direction of the others. He could already hear the medevac coming in, the sound of the chopper in the air louder than it should have been in his ears. He sat back, one hand touching Steve’s and the other digging into the bridge of his nose as he shook his head and tried to clear his sight. He felt dizzy enough that he didn’t even know whether he would be able to get up.

“Told ya not to overdo it,” Morita tsk-ed, although there was nothing but concern in his voice.

“Sorry,” Bucky had enough mental capacity left to reply. “But Steve-“

“I know, I know.” Morita sighed. “Come on, let’s get you up so that you can get onto that chopper together with Cap.”

Bucky’s murmured protests that he was fine, just needed some time, went unheard. Secretly he was glad that he would be allowed to stay with Steve on the journey to the nearest hospital whilst the rest of the Howling Commandos would likely remain here until they could be flown out to meet them back in the nearest large city where Bucky and hopefully Steve would be waiting for them. There wasn’t by far enough space on the chopper for everyone, and Bucky insisted that they took those who were most grievously injured of the soldiers they had been fighting with first. He would have given up his own seat on the helicopter if it had been needed.

Steve remained unconscious throughout the entire flight, Bucky hovering close enough to him to be able to watch even the slightest change as the doctors did their work. The travel to the French hospital and Steve’s subsequent surgery went by in a blur until Bucky suddenly found himself in a room filled with doctors and nurses, attempting to both care for Steve whilst also ushering the horde of curious journalists and civilians out of the door, away from Captain America.

“Clear the room. Now.” There was only one person that voice could belong to, and Bucky was glad when he saw Peggy Carter’s form appear in the doorframe to the room. After a few more exchanges with the doctors, they all left the room, although a nurse promised to wait outside in case there was a sudden medical emergency. Peggy sighed, running her hand through her hair as she dragged a chair close to sit down next to Bucky and Steve. Now that it was only the three of them, the exhaustion and worry on her face was bleeding through. She seemed to have aged years since Bucky had last seen her. Peggy grasped Steve’s hand, mindful not to jostle Bucky from his place at their partner’s side. Bucky could feel the faint thrum of magic from her, could only imagine how she was attempting to strengthen Steve’s body to help him fight off the wound.

“Did the doctors tell you anything? Will he make it?” Bucky didn’t like to admit it, but he had been in a daze for most of the time here, the annoying weakness in his body still not having disappeared completely. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open at the moment.

“Seems like it,” Peggy told him. “Although it was a rather close call, even for him. The doctors say they don’t know how long it’ll take him to heal since they don’t have any experience with the serum, but they expect him to at least be awake tomorrow. Now, care to tell me how it went down?” She released Steve’s hand to make space for Bucky to grasp it, instead putting one of her palms against Steve’s cheek.

Bucky told her everything that had happened; how the Commandos had basically fallen apart after the little argument between Steve and him, how Dernier had decided to charge ahead and Steve had decided to follow, and how it had been left to Bucky to pick up the scrapes and trying to keep as many people from getting killed as he could, almost unsuccessfully.

“So…it was a disaster.” Peggy’s gaze darkened as she listened to Bucky’s words, and he could see the anger rise inside her.

“Almost.” Bucky shifted uncomfortably on his seat, wondering how much blame Peggy would attach to him, but also feeling an absurd urge to defend Steve and the rest of the commandos despite their mistakes.

“This is just-“ Peggy sighed and rubbed her face. “This is exactly what I feared might happen. Now that he has his new body, it seems like Steve’s forgotten that he isn’t immortal and can’t do everything. And when he stops listening to you…”

“…it’ll one day get all of us killed. I know.” Bucky couldn’t keep the note of frustration out of his voice. “I tried the best I could, but-“

“-but he doesn’t listen. I know. Trust me, I know better than I wish I did.” Peggy murmured a few curses underneath her breath that Bucky was sure half the garrison would be scandalized for her to know. It only made him smile a little. “Looks like he needs some stern talking to once he’s back with us. And the rest of your unit, too. All the magic in the world won’t be able to save you if something like this happens again.”

Her words contained the unspoken thanks to Bucky for using his magic on Steve to keep him from dying. Peggy seemed to have immediately noticed that his momentary weakness had very little to do with an outside injury.

“I just…need him to listen to reason instead of only idealism. Even though the latter is the reason he’s Captain America in the first place.” Despite his words Bucky’s thumb was rubbing soft circles on Steve’s skin in a gesture that he hoped Steve might still feel, even though he wasn’t awake yet.

“It’ll be hard to convince him of that,” Peggy said with a wry smile even as her touch to Steve’s skin was gentle. The sternness of her words was only underlined by the softness in her eyes since for her, those two emotions built the unity upon which her love for Steve was founded.

“I know.” Bucky couldn’t quite keep down a yawn. Hell, but he was exhausted. “But it’ll be worth it once it gets into his thick skull that our words have actual merit.”

“Perhaps.” Peggy snorted. “Or perhaps it’ll serve only to make him more stubborn.”

“No way of knowing until he wakes up,” Bucky agreed.

The doctors’ predictions turned out to be correct. The rest of the Howling Commandos had arrived and stashed themselves in Steve’s room by the next morning, and it wasn’t long after that Steve finally opened his eyes, although they were unfocused and seemingly confused at first.

“Hey Cap.” Dugan’s smile was as wide as his face when Steve’s eyes finally begun to focus on them.

“Hey, jerk.” Bucky grinned, patting Steve’s hand a little. He could feel Steve return a squeeze to his fingers for a split second and his smile softened.

“Punk,” Steve murmured almost in reflex.

“Well, at least he definitely hasn’t suffered any brain damage,” Falsworth laughed. Steve frowned angrily in his direction, a reaction that only caused more laughs. Their reunion was filled with much amusement, and Steve seemed to grow stronger by the minute as he was with them, even suffering the ministrations of the nurses and doctors filing into the room one by one. It wasn’t until Peggy appeared and sat with them for a while that the mood sobered. Dugan shot one glance over to them, reading the silent conversations between Peggy and Bucky before nodding at the others and pointing out of the door. Dernier had very clearly received his stern talking to already from the way he behaved; nonetheless, at least Steve or Bucky would have to talk to him again at some point. The commandos slowly filed out one by one until it was only the three of them left.

“Well.” Steve looked down at the blanket covering him, noting well that both Peggy and Bucky had withdrawn their touches. He clearly knew what was going to happen now. “I guess you, uh, want to talk to me?”

Bucky and Peggy exchanged a glance. After an almost imperceptible nod from Bucky, Peggy took up the reins. He much preferred for her to begin the conversation; Peggy had always been better at this kind of confrontation than he was.

“Steve, you need to stop thinking only of yourself and your ideals when you rush into battle. You are part of a team, a team that needs you and relies on you being responsible so they don’t all get themselves killed. Sometimes, a retreat is more valuable than a victory.”

“But we had the chance to win,” Steve said mulishly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “And we did, after all, didn’t we?”

“Well, we almost _didn’t_ ,” Bucky hissed, full of anger. “You nearly died! Without some of my sniping, Dernier would have died too, and it was altogether a rather stupid plan because there wasn’t any bloody plan in the first place. If we had retreated and regrouped, we could have organized a good resistance, maybe even gotten Dernier behind the enemy lines to plant his explosives, without having you almost bleed out between some empty town ruins!”

Bucky didn’t care that he was almost shouting the last words; from a quick look at this side, he didn’t think that Peggy particularly cared either.

“That’s still no guarantee that we would have-“

“Steven Grant Rogers.” Peggy’s voice was cold as she leaned forwards, her icy gaze drilling into Steve’s slightly guilt-stricken eyes. “You are the most bull-headed man I’ve ever met, and I know Howard Stark _and_ Colonel Phillips. They might have made you a captain when you came out of that machine, but clearly that doesn’t mean that you know just how a captain is supposed to behave – Sergeant Barnes here seems to have more tactical and common sense in his little toe than you have in your entire body. If this is to continue, _Captain_ America, you should make sure that you acquire a lot more sense than you have now.“

 Even Bucky was cowed by the extent of Peggy’s anger. He had known that this wasn’t the first time that she was angry with Steve about the ways he had behaved as a commanding officer, but this was very clearly the first time she had addressed the issue so candidly. Steve seemed taken aback as well, staring at her with his mouth slightly agape.

“She’s right, you know,” Bucky said, his quiet voice a stark contrast to Peggy’s. He hoped Steve wouldn’t see this as a betrayal from him. “You rely too much on your idealism and what you think should be the right thing to do, not what the right thing is according to tactics and strategy. It makes things…dangerous, more so than they should be. Especially for those with you.”

“Whatever I expected you two to say, this wasn’t it,” Steve finally admitted after a period of silence. “I’m- Yeah. Uhm”

He drew one of his hands through his hair, wincing as the movement jostled the bullet wound in his neck. Peggy and Bucky were both unrelenting, offering neither help nor comfort, and Steve sank back into his pillows, clearly still unsure of what to say.

“I’m sorry if I’ve ever endangered you more than necessary,” he told them. “But I- I thought that I have a body now which can finally do what my mind wants it to, I would not have to lose any fights anymore. That I could now protect where I used to be the one protected.” The ghost of a smile crossed his face, directed at Bucky, before he grew serious again. “That I could win a fight, a war, where we would otherwise have failed.”

“Fixing the world isn’t your responsibility alone,” Peggy said, her voice much more gentle now. “In fact, it would be terribly arrogant to believe that it is, and I have known you for many things, but not an arrogant man. Let others help. Let our expertise help you. _Trust_ us.”

“But I am the only one where there should have been many,” Steve sighed. “I have to be the one to win the fights because there is nobody else.”

“There is though.” Bucky reached out, touching Steve lightly on the back of his hand. “We might not be super soldiers, but we are still fighters; don’t insult us by telling us that we aren’t fit to bear that responsibility with you. There are tacticians at the SSR, experts, all who would be happy to depart their knowledge on you and help you in your goals. You just have to let us.”

“None of them have ever offered-“

“Because you didn’t ask,” Peggy interjected. “They might be your superiors, but a man who bears the name of _Captain America_ …they’d think twice about approaching you.”

That shut Steve up for several minutes. As someone who had grown up poor, who had never had been in a position of power or privilege over others it had never sunk into his thinking that his transformation into Captain America was more than just a physical one. People viewed him differently now as he had practically gone from a nobody to a somebody overnight, and especially once he had been turned into a true war hero. He was about as far removed from the sickly ordinary boy growing up in Brooklyn as the president himself.

“Like nobody else in this room,” Bucky said, picking up the thread where Peggy had left off, “you’re not who you once were – and not just physically. Maybe you should learn to extend a little more trust in those around you now. And that doesn’t _just_ mean me.” If anything he knew that he was very much not the person who had received the drafting letter what seemed a lifetime ago.

“Alright.” Steve gave them a very small smile that couldn’t belie the exhaustion in his face and how much he was still thinking about their words. “I’ll see if I can’t find anyone willing on giving me some advice on tactics. And other things.”

“Well, you can start right with Sergeant Barnes here,” Peggy said with a smile. “I think he’s spent more time learning about the strategic parts of war during his training than you have so far.”

“True. I never-“ Steve didn’t even have to finish the sentence. The shame in his eyes told Bucky that he had never really considered what Bucky had gone through or learned during training beyond his physical skills. “If you’d like to teach me, Buck?”

“Of course.” Bucky grinned. “But a little warning first, I’ve been told I’m a harsh task master…”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Can’t be anything worse than I have seen yet,” he said and earned a small jostle from Bucky’s arm into his ribs, far enough from his neck as to not disturb the wound. They laughed quietly, sobering up quickly enough when the enormity of the task before them sunk in.

“You know, when they asked me to do Project Rebirth I thought I was just going to be a soldier,” Steve admitted. “Because that’s what they wanted to create in the first place – the perfect soldier. Not the perfect general or perfect strategist, but a perfect fighting machine to win their war for them.”

The bitterness in Steve’s voice was tangible. Bucky knew that this hadn’t been everybody’s intention – Dr. Erskine’s motivation, for example, had apparently been a lot more complicated than that – but it had certainly played a big part in why military and government had funded the project in the first place. And he knew from his own experience that plenty of people didn’t really see Steve as a human but as a weapon that they could use whenever they wanted and thought it was needed the most.

“I never realized that by making me a captain they would also make me a tactician,” Steve continued. “That there is more to leading than being an example and giving orders that seem relatively obvious.” He looked down; a quick, shy smile flickering across his lips that was so achingly familiar to Bucky from the days when he and Steve used to go out to dance with the girls.

“Guess they didn’t really realise that either, otherwise they would have probably trained me a lot more thoroughly in all of this.” Steve sighed with a little flutter of his hand.

“They didn’t.” Peggy shook her head slightly. “I think they might not even have considered that you would leave their stint at the USO as their perfect poster boy to fight the real war in the first place – or they hoped it would last much longer so that they _could_ teach you what you needed to know. Certain unexpected events kind of changed all of that.”

Bucky couldn’t hide the smallest of winces at her words as his mind threw him back into Zola’s lab at Peggy’s note of ‘unexpected events’.

“Anyway, you’ll have ample opportunity to learn now what you haven’t picked up already during our missions,” Bucky stated, full of pragmatism. Steve nodded.

In a way, Steve being wounded provided them with exactly what they had needed – enough downtime for Steve so that he could get his head into the necessary studies as long as his still healing body allowed and an excuse for keeping Captain America out of active duty for now so that he would have time for all the lessons being drilled into his head. Bucky began with his own knowledge and experience but quickly enough others filed in to help out. Steve, slightly unwilling at first, proved a rather quick learner with a good grasp of even the more complicated concepts - although it remained to be seen how well he would be able to apply those in the field. Peggy and Bucky made sure to have his education be as well-rounded as possible although it was still obvious that Peggy thought this should have been done much, much earlier than it did; a notion that Steve seemed to be inclined to agree to after a few days when he quietly apologized to Bucky for the situations he had sometimes inadvertently caused.

*

The effect of the training became clear during the first few missions after Steve was allowed back in the field. Their team was altogether more rounded, more effective – they had always fought well together, but now, instead of a blunt weapon that had been swinging around slightly aimlessly, they were sharp and to the point, capable of diffusing even dangerous situations with much more skill and tactical aplomb than before. Steve still made mistakes, yes, but none of them were fatal, and he quickly learned not only to be an inspiring soldier but an inspiring commander as well.

“You should have seen the way these officers looked at you,” Bucky remarked quietly as they were disassembling and cleaning up their weapons one night. He had done a little more tinkering on his sniper rifle with Peggy and Howard the previous week and was fairly sure that his rifle was as good as it could get now, perfectly attuned to him in every way.

“Why? Full of jealousy?” Steve laughed. He was polishing his shield, making sure the edges stayed as sharp as they always were.

“At the beginning, yes,” Bucky admitted. “Now they stare at you as if they’d never expected Captain America to actually behave like, you know, a captain.”

“Shame we weren’t allowed in that meeting!” Dugan called over. “I’d have loved to have seen that.”

The rest of the Commandos spread out around the fire murmured an agreement as they raised their mugs. Peggy, sitting at the side, was grinning into her own drink.

“I haven’t seen General Brangler this unsettled since they told him that the Germans had blown up his favourite car,” she said between two mouthfuls. “It was a rather nice sight, especially when you raised your voice and pointed out all the flaws in their ridiculous plans.”

“I was sure Phillips would admonish me for that afterwards,” Steve admitted, but there was a smile tinkling in his eyes as well.

“He didn’t, though,” Bucky cut in, “looked quite pleased instead if I remember correctly.”

“He’s never liked Brangler, and since Steve has been his protégé from the start…” Peggy shrugged but a grin was lurking under the surface of her face. Gabe laughed.

“I really wish I could sit in on these meeting sometimes!” he repeated Dugan’s earlier sentiment.

“Nah, trust me, mostly they are boring as hell.” Bucky winked at him. “I particular when the path should be clear but everyone is just arguing themselves to death instead.”

“Well, at least we had Steve to put a stop to this nonsense today,” Peggy agreed, stretching a little. She had long since become a staple as an honorary member of the Howling Commandos, any problem the others might have had with her being in the field with them erased the moment they had seen her shoot.

“So, talking about nonsense, what is that next plan you’ve cooked up for us this week, cap?” Morita wanted to know. Steve rolled his shoulders a little, putting his shield aside.

“We’re about to take down another Hydra stronghold,” he explained.

“Hopefully not leading to an icy bath again for you and Bucky,” Dernier interjected in French, causing a round of laughter from all of them.

“Yes, hopefully not, especially since there’s no stream close by.” Steve smiled. “No, this one doesn’t have any underground facilities, apparently, but is instead situated in an old castle in the Swiss Alps. The Swiss are neutral, but it seems like Hydra somehow found their way in anyway. Approach will be hard since it’s situated on top of a rather steep outcrop, but once inside its occupants shouldn’t pose too much danger. We have it from a reliable source in the local village that it’s mostly scientists in there, not soldiers or weapon storage.”

“Scientists doing what?” Morita wanted to know.

“Not sure; our source said they didn’t have much information. We’ll just have to hope that it’s nothing that can harm us.”

Bucky shivered slightly, knowing full well what kind of _science_ Hydra pursued.  He could still feel its taste on his tongue when he awoke from the claws of nightmares.

“So, how do we get into the castle if it’s so impenetrable?” Dugan picked up the thread again.

“A diversion,” Steve said, launching into the full explanation of the plan he and Bucky had designed over the afternoon and then amended with Peggy’s and Phillips’ suggestions. It involved Dernier and Gabe setting up explosions all around the castle and the unused parts of the little town next to it, leading the Nazis on a wild goose chase across the landscape and drawing away as many of the guards as possible. Bucky and Falsworth would form the first unit approaching the castle, taking out as many guards as they could before they would be followed by Steve, Dugan and Morita to breach the castle walls proper. It was a simple plan at heart, like most of their plans were, ready to be adapted and modified according to their needs and the events happening. They would have to hope that the diversion worked and not too many soldiers would be left at the castle.

“Howard also mentioned to bring as many of the scientific experiment descriptions and results back that we can before we blow the rest to hell, so keep a lookout for things like journals and notepads,” Steve explained.

“Of course.” Morita grinned, waving his mug around a little. “Provided that we can read what those Germans write. Personally, I can never decipher their scribbles…”

“As if your own handwriting is that much neater.” Gabe snorted just as Dugan added: “Always looks like a caterpillar stumbled through some ink to me,” which was met with roaring laughter.

The evening dissolved into insults and drinking from there on until they were all tired enough not to care anymore. One by one the Commandos made their way to the tents, followed by Peggy, leaving only Steve and Bucky, who weren’t tired yet, at the fire. They had never talked about how Bucky seemed to be needing much less sleep than before he had been caught at Azzano, just as they hadn’t talked about how much stronger and more resilient he seemed to have become. Bucky knew that they all suspected something since everyone in the commandos had working eyes and minds, but he appreciated their respect that it would be his decision when or if he ever wanted to share anything about his experiences in Zola’s lab. Bucky was relatively sure that he never would.

“You think everything will go alright in two days?” Bucky asked Steve.

“No idea.” Steve shook his head slightly. “But I trust our team. And you,” he added with a little smile. His hand crept out towards Bucky until their fingers were touching. Bucky smiled. Sometimes, small touches like this was all they needed, the contact of skin on skin telling them more than they could say with a hundred words or kisses.

“Well, we _are_ a rather good team,” Bucky admitted, his fingers curling around Steve’s. They didn’t dare do more; one of the others might stumble out of their tents to relieve themselves at any time.

“Yeah.” Steve smiled again, saying nothing more but leaning his shoulder slightly against Bucky’s. Bucky leaned back in, closing his eyes and enjoying the warmth against his side.

“Have you ever thought about what we’re going to do once this is over?” he asked. It had been swirling around his mind for a while now, although more in the form of an abstract thought experiment rather than something that would ever really happen. The war seemed like it would go on forever. Steve frowned.

“Not really,” he admitted. “Guess I’ll just go back to being a USO puppet?”

Bucky laughed and elbowed him in the side.

“Not a chance. They’ll probably beg you to do all manner of jobs that have nothing to do with dancing on stage. Especially when there’s no war that bonds could be sold for anymore.”

“No war…” Steve looked rather wistful. “I honestly can’t imagine it anymore.”

“Me neither,” Bucky said softly. He rubbed his arm where it had been broken during his time in Azzano, even though the break had healed without a trace. “Maybe you should just retire. Marry Peggy, move into a house together, have dozens of kids…”

“Right. As if we could ever lead a domestic life with no worries.” Steve snorted, even as his expression softened. “Peggy could never, she thrives under pressure and I…I wouldn’t feel good about throwing Erskine’s gift away so easily. Too much responsibility for that, I think.” He shrugged. “And then, there’s always you.”

His hand squeezed Bucky’s once, and Bucky thought something in his chest would give way and break.

“I could always move in as your servant,” he suggested light-heartedly, which earned him another frown from Steve. “You know, shine your shoes, make the bed, do the cooking…”

“Your cooking is atrocious,” Steve said with a snort, elbowing him back. “Although I wouldn’t say no to orderly beds and shined shoes…”

Bucky laughed, although he sobered up quickly.

“It wouldn’t be too bad, yeah.” For a moment he allowed himself to dream of a time when such a vision might become reality, of a peaceful home with those he loved and nobody to take it away from them. What would it be like not to have to worry anymore? To see Steve’s and Peggy’s children grow up, calling him ‘Uncle James’, to be able to be with Steve whenever he wanted without fear of being found out…

“Maybe it’ll happen one day,” Steve said. “No war goes on forever, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah…” Bucky looked down at his hands, imagining small fingers closing around his, innocence covering up the blood and violence that had accumulated under his skin.

“Maybe.” One day.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky could feel his heart beating in his ears, adrenaline amplifying even the smallest sounds in the air with crystalline clarity. His entire body was thrumming with tension, and for once he was glad of his enhanced senses, making it so much easier for him to see at night in the light of the strongly waning moon and the faint explosions sounding from the distance.

He grasped Falsworth’s hand, pressing his fingers into his palm in a certain pattern to indicate that there were two guardsmen right ahead. Falsworth nodded, and Bucky released just a smidgen of magic into the soil, causing a few stones to tumble and trees to groan as they leaned to the side, grabbing the guards’ attention. He and Falsworth were behind the guards in a flash; the blood from their cut throats spilling over their uniforms in a black stream.

These two had been the last they had met on their tour around the perimeter of the castle, although there were more posted up on the battlements. Bucky was unable to get a good shot in their direction, so they would have to hope that they hadn’t been seen and the absence of the other patrols wasn’t noticed, but at least they had done all they could without being detected. He wiped his hands on his pants, trying in vain to get rid of the blood on his fingers. The images of children and an idyllic life from before were so far away that they could as well have been nothing but a fever dream.

Once back, they relayed the additional information they had gained to Steve and adjusted their plan to infiltrate the castle ever so slightly – it would be easier now, in fact, that Bucky had discovered a back door and been able to pilfer a key from one of the downed guards for it. The key worked, and they gained access quickly, although not without complications. They hadn’t been prepared for there being a password system in place in addition to the use of the key (bad preparation on their part, Bucky noted, although capturing and torturing one of the enemy soldiers for information would have called too much attention down on them). Bucky cursed as he kicked the knife out of one soldier’s hand, ducking as Steve’s shield almost severed the head of another behind him.

It took them only seconds to subdue the three guards but it had been loud and would have been a miracle if nobody had heard anything and came to investigate.

“Shit,” Bucky murmured as he retrieved one of his own knives, wiping down the blade on the soldier’s uniform. They would have to hurry now, and he hated operating under such increased pressure.

“Let’s go! As we planned. Bucky and Falsworth, you take the basement; Morita and I will secure the upper floors and especially the battlements. Update as soon as a floor is clear.”

The others signaled their agreement. Bucky had a slightly bad feeling in the pit of his stomach at the idea to split up, but it _had_ been their original plan, and speed was of the essence. Besides, the narrow corridors especially in the lower levels of the castle would have been a hindrance to so many people at once anyway.

He and Falsworth set off, carefully making sure to check each doorway and room on their way for any hiding Hydra soldiers. The few that they found didn’t pose any problems – he and Falsworth made a good team, not quite as good as him and Steve perhaps, as they seemed to know what the other was doing before the motion actually happened – but good enough that the difference wouldn’t have been visible to most outsiders. As they had hoped there was little security with most of the guards either away or simply not needed for what was being done down here.

And yet, despite everything, Bucky felt his lungs constrict a little further in unexplainable dread with every step.

They found the first scientists in the very last room of the ground level they were on. Huddled together in what was obviously a break room, they looked rather surprised when Bucky and Falsworth burst through the door. None of them seemed to be particularly inclined to fight back, although a man with sandy hair stared at Bucky longer than a random coincidence would merit. They tied their hands and feet together, making sure that none of them would be able to escape, before continuing on. A glimpse of yellow caught Bucky’s eye as they exited – flowers on the mess table in the middle of the room, looking oddly out of place. He shuddered again. Something was far more wrong than it seemed.

The revelation came as quickly and swift in its brutality as a slap to the face. The moment they entered the lower levels Bucky could smell it, a smell he hadn’t sensed since Azzano but that he would recognize everywhere – chemicals, sweat, piss and, above all, fear so thick it seemed to choke him.

“Bucky, you alright?”

Falsworth’s voice seemed far away, as if hidden behind a layer of thick cotton that was stuffed into Bucky’s ears.

“Bucky?”

“I’m fine…” Bucky’s voice trailed off as he carefully descended the set of stairs leading below. Falsworth made a non-committal noise that sounded about as convinced by Bucky’s words as he was feeling. “There’s…I think there might be prisoners down here.”

His fingers were gripping his gun so tightly that his knuckles were standing out in stark white. Suddenly he wished that Steve was with him, although it might be better for him not to see Bucky like this.

“Prisoners? But-“ Falsworth stopped speaking the moment Bucky turned and his sharp gaze landed on him. The world around him was slowly returning to normal at least, although the hollow in his stomach still seemed to grow with every step.

The first room they found contained a few more scientists and their assistants. Bucky resisted the urge to question them about what was going on in the basement of this castle. The following hallway was guarded by three soldiers who they took out quickly and effectively before venturing further onward. The smells were intensifying, and suddenly Bucky remembered the yellow flowers on the dining table upstairs. Flowers. When there was so much death down here.

They found the first prisoner when they stepped through a door on their right. Falsworth shivered, and almost belatedly Bucky remembered that he hadn’t been the only one who had been in a Hydra cage before. Wordlessly he gripped his friend’s wrist for a second in a reassuring gesture before they both walked on. They opened the doors to the cages one by one, but only a few prisoners rose to their feet; most remained huddled in the corners, staring ahead sightlessly and hugging themselves with soft murmurs.

“We don’t have time to guide them outside now,” Falsworth said, his voice rough and off-key. He was just as shaken as Bucky was. Bucky didn’t want to advance, every fiber in his being screaming to run away.

“We’ll collect them on our way back,” Bucky told him. His voice was wavering only a little. Falsworth nodded.

They came across a few more guards and pens with prisoners, all of which behaved similar to the first ones they had found. Only two of them had the strength and mind to run away as Bucky radioed their findings to Steve, not even listening to his reply before shouldering his gun again and advancing into the next room.

It was like stepping back into his own private nightmares.

Three prisoners were strapped onto tables in what was obviously a lab. One of them was dead – there was no pulse when Bucky checked but the other two were still alive, one of them with her mouth open in a perpetual scream and the other with tears running from his glassy eyes. Bucky knew what they were experiencing, could feel the sensations back on his own skin, the tearing and burning of invisible fingers in his brain and on his body and pain, pain so all-encompassing it had burned a scar in his chest that he would let nobody ever know the depth of. Nonetheless, Bucky was only seconds behind Falsworth at moving to the tables and starting to cut through the restraints binding the prisoners to the table. He clung to the task like a drowning man to a plank of wood, using it to distract him from all the horrid screaming in his mind as it attempted to process what it was seeing.

The woman he freed didn’t move, only continued her silent screams, a soft broken sound coming from her throat. Nothing that they did seemed to rouse her and she remained catatonic. Bucky could hear the screaming in his head getting louder and louder as he looked into their lifeless eyes. Two quick shots from his gun and both prisoners fell lifeless to the floor, Bucky’s chest rising and sinking rapidly as his hand trembled. Falsworth said nothing, only murmuring a quick prayer under his breath before giving Bucky a quick nod and stepping back outside. Bucky was glad that he hadn’t attempted to touch him.

The two scientists they found tinkering with chemical solutions in the next room they killed without mercy. The smells of blood and acid loosened something inside Bucky, made it twist and turn and roar from its ugly head. The next scientist he killed with his bare hands, barely more than a thought behind it when he worked his magic, causing his victim to drop dead at a touch. The rage surged inside him, clawed at his chest even as something inside him began screaming more loudly and trying to hide away.

Cold began to spread inside him despite the raging fire, a cold that turned to ice when they reached the last room in the basement. It was a large laboratory, thankfully free of any prisoners, although the blood on the floor and the stink in the air made it clear that it hadn't been like this for long. Bucky's gaze swept over the lab benches until it fell on a small notebook at the end of one.

He almost dropped it right after picking it up.

The writing inside was neat, small letters in impeccable German. It was the actual words, their clinical detachment, that made Bucky's stomach heave and rebel.

_Subject 5: Prolonged spasm after administration of substance B. Died of heart failure after 2 hours and 45 minutes. Recommend lowering pH of substance slightly._

If he closed his eyes, Bucky could almost hear Arnim Zola's voice repeating the words as he wrote them. His hands were shaking, and yet he kept on turning the pages, turning them until he knew what he would find...

_Subject 34: extraordinarily resilient, with a remarkable talent for blood-based magic..._

He had just enough time to throw away the notebook before turning around and throwing up in the bin next to the lab bench. The screaming inside him was so loud that he didn't even hear Falsworth approaching.

"Bucky?" No touching, at least. Falsworth kept his hands at his side, and Bucky was grateful; any touch would have burned like fire and just made him scream more, he suspected. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to ignore how much it was still shaking.

"Zola was here," he said in a voice that he barely recognised as his own. "It's his diary."

Falsworth nodded in understanding and picked up the book from the floor, holding it between two fingers as if he wanted to touch it as little as possible before dropping it in one of his pockets. Bucky wished he would just destroy it. He had to resist the urge to tackle him to the ground and wrestle it from his fingers so that he could rip its pages into tiny shreds.

"The basement is secure," Falsworth radioed in. Bucky couldn't quite understand Steve's answer, but from Falsworth's expression he gathered it was positive.

"C'mon, Bucky, let's go." Falsworth swallowed, his own desire to get away from what they were seeing at least as strong as Bucky's, although he was able to hide it better. "Steve's waiting for us where we left those scientists. Said the upper parts of the castle were secure."

"Okay." Time still seemed to have changed consistency to Bucky, expanding and contracting again, making it feel like he was wading through molasses. Falsworth took the lead, and he walked behind him, both hyperaware and caught up in his own mindspace. Despite their area being secure, they still checked carefully before they turned each corner, knowing that there might be secret entrances and rooms they might have overlooked.

When they appeared in the dining room where they had left the scientists, Steve only took a single a look at Bucky's face before nodding in understanding.

"Right, let's get out of here."

"There are still prisoners here that haven't left their cages yet," Falsworth said after exchanging a gaze with Bucky. Bucky thought of the emptiness in those prisoners' eyes and shuddered.

"We should blow this place up once they're out. Destroy everything," Bucky pressed out, uncomfortably aware that everyone was watching him.

"Alright, let's get on it then," Steve agreed without hesitation.

Nobody disagreed with Bucky's suggestion to destroy everything, not after they had helped evacuate the prisoners and seen the labs below ground.

They were in the process of bringing the last ones outside when Dernier radioed in, relaying news that they should have expected but still weren’t welcome.

"Seems like the Hydra soldiers outside smelled that something fishy was going on and we were leading them on a wild goose chase. More than half have doubled back and are coming our way now," Steve relayed Dernier's words to them. They all cursed, increasing their speed heedless of the fact that most prisoners couldn't walk as fast as them.

"I'll double back and rig the castle to blow up," Bucky offered. Steve frowned, so he hastened to explain: "I still have some of the explosives Dernier gave me last time, and he explained to me how to set them. It's fastest alone, so you can get the rest of the prisoners out. I'll be back before Hydra's here."

Steve caught his gaze before replying, and Bucky gave him a miniscule nod - yes, he was sure. The urge to bring the entire castle down with everything inside it was so strong that he doubted he'd have followed Steve's orders had they been anything other than approval.

"Alright," Steve said. "Stay in contact. At the first sign that something is off, you abort the mission, especially when the reinforcements are here. Understood?"

Bucky nodded before leaving, his hand on Gabe's shoulder and squeezing lightly as he walked past. Gabe would understand, he knew; his wordless communication no longer existed just between him and Steve, but had extended to others in the Commandos as well.

The castle loomed like the grey, shapeless walls in his nightmares as he returned to its underground chambers. Bucky wondered if the stink of what had been done here would ever fully vanish or if in hundreds of years people walking across these ruins would still feel it, hear it, smell, the stench of awfulness of the human race. He shuddered.

Bucky began in the deepest of the chambers, leaving a little bit of blood behind on the walls as he made his way back up again. Normally he was able to feel the walls with just a single touch, but he wanted to make sure today, be absolutely certain, that nothing would remain.

He walked upstairs, step by step, making sure to feel the walls in his thoughts.

"Buck, they're coming too close." That was Steve's voice through the radio. Bucky winced when he heard it, getting caught by surprise by the sudden noise.

"On my way. Just need a few more minutes..." he mumbled, repeating his reply a little more loudly when no one was answering because they hadn't understood him. He made sure to go through every single room on the ground floor, neglecting the upper ones. They would crumble once the foundation was gone.

"Bucky. You need to get out. _Now_!" Gabe's voice was sharp through the radio, and Bucky thought for a moment that he could hear faint shots ringing out in the background. "The reinforcements are here."

"Coming." Bucky cursed quietly as he hastened up the last couple of steps that lead to the small side door he had entered through the first time. "Are you safe?"

"As much as we can be, yes. Although we're close to barging in to give you a few more seconds."

"No need." Bucky opened the door and was greeted by a barrage of sounds. The reinforcements were close, far too close, as Gabe had said. He cursed again, pressing his hand on the wall outside, praying that none of the German soldiers would see him until he had brought the castle down. Closing his eyes for just a second, he took a deep breath, feeling the magic curse through his veins with such force as it had done seldomly before, fueled by his own rage and desperation.

A rumble went through the earth before him, the ground shaking almost imperceptibly. It grew, soon becoming louder and louder until the castle in front of him started caving in, its foundations ripping themselves apart as wall after wall crumbled under the force of Bucky’s magic. Still, he kept his hands on the stone, even as he heard shouting from far away, wanting to make sure that everything was gone without trace once they left this place.

The shouting became louder, and he realised it wasn’t only the approaching soldiers but also Gabe shouting into his ears to _get the hell away_. The sky was blurry in front of his eyes as a wave of weakness rolled through him after the magic exertion. Bucky cursed and finally stumbled away, praying that his feet would stay strong for long enough to carry him to safety.

The popping of gunshots sounded, their noises strangely subdued in his ringing ears. The pain below his ribs seemed similarly far away as did the one in his bicep. Bucky kept stumbling on, clutching the oddly wet fabric on his skin as he pulled his head between his shoulders. Branches were starting to beat into his face, but he kept on going, hoping the trees would provide him with some cover even as the castle crumbled into dust behind him.

“Bucky!” He didn’t even register the noise at first, kept on running against the branches and trees beating into his face before he realized that the branches weren’t branches at all but hands that attempted to grab him and pull him to safety. He finally looked up, staring into Gabe’s and Steve’s worried eyes even as Dugan pulled him onwards, not even listening to the small protesting noises coming out of his mouth.

“C’mon,” Dugan shouted into his ear as the sound of gunshots kept ringing out on the hill beyond him. “We gotta leave. Morita managed to find an old car; he’s keeping it ready for us to get outta here. Are you badly hurt?”

“I don’t know, I-“ Bucky found himself shaking his head, staring down at his hand where blood was reflecting in the light. Dugan followed his gaze and frowned, murmuring a curse under his breath that Bucky was too exhausted to understand. _I’m fine_ , Bucky wanted to say, _I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Nobody will ever experiment on people in this castle again. Ever_. But all he could get out were a few unconnected words before the ground rushed up to meet him.

*

“We can’t let this continue. If you all keep going like this, we’ll soon pull your corpses out of the _mud_ , and no one will be helped at all. Rogers, your men need to start thinking ahead for more than one fight; you have to tell them that-“

A fog seemed to surround Bucky as he was waking. Or no, more of a marsh than a fog really, with tendrils that had attached themselves to him, trying to drag him back under the murky waters of his mind, not wanting to let go. The voices swam around him as he drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes angry, sometimes caring, but often familiar enough to keep him closer and closer to the surface.

The argument now was the first time that he could make sense of what was being said, Colonel Phillip’s voice cutting through his hazy thoughts like a knife. Steve didn’t sound any less angry when he replied.

“We _are_ thinking ahead. It’s the only reason why we got out alive in the first place and some of us obviously almost _didn’t_. If we hadn’t done the planning as thoroughly and as properly as we did, this could’ve ended much worse.”

“From what I heard it was Barnes in the first places who refused to listen completely to your orders. Reel your men in, Rogers. Or I’ll have to get some of those condolence letters ready that I wrote back when the 107th was captured.”

“They were experimenting on them.” The words came out of Bucky’s mouth almost unbidden and so quiet that for a moment he could still hope that nobody had heard them. But the room around him went silent, and it told him all he needed to know.

“Did you just say something, Buck?” Steve’s voice. Bucky made an effort to try and open his eyes.

“They were experimenting on them. The Nazis,” he said again, this time a bit more strongly, although his voice was still brittle and far too raspy.

“We know,” Phillips replied stiffly. Despite Bucky’s now open eyes, the room around him was still more or less a blur, but at least he could make out shapes now. “Brigadier Falsworth recounted everything in great detail.”

Falsworth…yes, Monty had been there, Bucky remembered now. His presence in his memories was overshadowed by everything else he had seen.

“I had to destroy it,” Bucky whispered. “Had to make sure that nothing was left. You have to know-“

“Colonel, I think maybe we should continue this discussion at a different time,” Steve said firmly. Bucky saw two shapes rustling around, although Phillip’s reply was lost in the haze of his mind. Steve seemed to disappear for a few moments as well, but there was someone else who entered the room. Bucky smiled when he recognized Dugan’s voice and his big burly shape.

“Woke up just at the right time, didya.” Dugan grinned, his moustache quivering slightly from the force of his smile. Bucky couldn’t help but smile back, although he winced slightly when Dugan patted his shoulder just a little too hard.

“You know me, always on time,” he replied lightly, shaking his head a little to try and clear the still persisting haziness from in front of his eyes.

“And a good thing it is that you are, cause we were getting quite worried,” Dugan added. “Not that we weren’t sure that your stubbornness alone would pull you through, but still, good to see you awake again.”

Bucky’s gaze took in the room around him. It was small, with only one other empty bed beside him and Dugan his only company. He frowned, leaning forward a little as he ignored the pain in his chest.

“The others? Gabe? Monty? Dernier? Morita-“

“They’re all fine. A little banged up, especially in Dernier’s case, but none the worse for wear.”  
Bucky heaved a relieved sigh and sank back into his pillow. That was good. He knew that what he had done had been necessary, but that didn’t help with the sudden onslaught of his bad conscience that he might have gotten one of the Howling Commandos killed.

“Good,” he said after a moment when it was clear that Dugan was waiting for an answer. Bucky still couldn’t quite meet his eyes – by now everyone had to know exactly what they had found in the castle and how he had reacted to it. He didn’t know what he feared more when he looked into his friends’ eyes – the pity he hated so much that it made him physically recoil or some kind of the righteous fury that always felt as if it was searing straight through his bones, leaving him stiff and cold.

“Bucky…” Oh how he hated that tone of voice sometimes; sympathetic, just _reasonable_ , especially when his insides still hurt from more than just bullets and he didn’t know what to do with any of the thoughts rattling around in his mind. Dugan was scratching his head, and Bucky looked up at him before looking away again. “Nobody is blaming you. Well, none of the Howling Commandos are, anyway. We’re all fine. Our mission was successful. It’s all-“

“It’s not all good,” Bucky finally pressed out between clenched teeth. “If I had just _killed_ Zola back then when he first had us, if I had somehow taken him down with me, if I had just…all these people would still be alive, they would still be _sane_ and not broken and-“ He took a deep breath, trying to keep the words in to no avail. “I should’ve killed him.”

“And died in the process.” It wasn’t a question, even if Dugan frowned when he said it. Bucky shrugged, although he knew how selfish it was. All his anger and pain, however, kept boiling over in his chest until it was all he could not to shout it at Dugan, who certainly was one of the ones who least deserved it.

“Perhaps,” was all that he replied. It would have been a fine enough price to pay to see something so evil eradicated from this world.

“Except that it would’ve solved nothing.” Dugan’s voice was practical and sure. “Zola had notes. Assistants. Helpers. As cruel as it is, I am sure he is not the only scientist in Hydra. What was that? ‘ _Cut off one head, two more shall take its place_ ’? Killing him would not have ended anything. We have to tear down the entire organization, destroy them until there is nothing left. That’s the only way to gain back some peace.”

Bucky hissed under his breath, the black venom of his anger only slightly dampened. Of course Dugan was right, and he had done the one thing that successfully made Bucky’s fury veer away from himself and onto another target.

“And will you do it with me? You and the Howling Commandos? Raze them to the ground and kill them all?”

“Of course we will. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? But don’t get me wrong – we aren’t doing this only for you or because of you or any of that romantic crap. We’re doing it for us. For those weeks we spent inside those cells. For our dead comrades and friends. For those poor people you found in the castle. For every single soul on this earth who’s had their lives destroyed and corrupted by them. That’s what we’re fighting for. It’s so much bigger than just you and I.”

And that Bucky could live with.

*

“You’ll stay with me next time.” Steve’s voice made it clear that he wouldn’t accept any arguments. He positively _glared_ at Bucky when he opened his mouth to protest him nonetheless.

“I don’t need a chaperone,” Bucky said mulishly, fingers pulling at the blanket over his knees. The bullet wounds in his chest and arm had almost healed, and he would be allowed to leave the infirmary soon, but just the thought of being watched and worried over as if he was a small child sent tendrils of anger racing up his spine.

“You won’t _get_ a chaperone,” Steve pointed out. His own anger and worry were like a dark cloud hanging around his head. 

“What else am I supposed to call it? A _protector_? A nursemaid? A-“

“A friend.” Many people assumed that because Steve was a nice person he was also a soft person. They were so very, very wrong as Bucky had long known. The steel in Steve’s eyes could have cut down mountains. “Someone who you can trust. Someone who trusts _you_.”

Bucky snorted. A small part of his mind was screaming at him that Steve, of all people, was not the one that he should be angry with, that he had to stop and _think_ , but he couldn’t. His anger at everything – the world, fate, this war, his magic that was more of a curse, _everything_ – had been growing for days and was black and all-consuming, leaving no room for consideration.

“You do _not_ trust me,” he snapped. “Nobody truly does. I am _Sergeant Barnes_ , the one that is more likely to get them into trouble than out of it. The one that needs looking after because he’s been tortured and broken and…nobody trusts me because nobody needs me. Not even you anymore. _Especially_ not you.”

He hadn’t meant for all of these words to come out so suddenly, but here they were, falling out of his mouth and lying in his lap in a rotten heap. Steve only stood there staring at him, his mouth pressed into a thin line as his mind was clearly attempting to work through any possible answers. Bucky simultaneously felt as if he wanted to punch a wall or run away. Or scream very, very loudly.

“But I do need you.” Steve sounded almost helpless, a strange tone of voice from a man of his stature. “Now more than ever. I’m sorry that you can’t see it.”

And with that he walked out, away from Bucky who couldn’t follow him without aggravating his healing wounds.

“Steve!” he shouted. “Steve, I-”

The door banged closed with a terrible sound of finality.

“Shit,” he murmured. A scream broke loose from his throat. He was of half a mind to rip the skin on his fingers open and destroy everything around him, lay waste to the room and the bed he was in until all the anger inside him was spent. But the memory of Steve’s lost voice held him back – if he lost any more control now, what would it prove? He had to _think_ , had to calm down somehow, had to consider how to fix what he had just broken.

But there was nothing to distract himself with in this empty room, nothing but the pain in his chest and the loud clamouring in his head. He could feel his hands shaking as he tried to breathe through the anger, but it did little to help. In the end he gave in and reached out towards the empty water pitcher next to his bed. The lines in blood were quickly drawn, and he pressed his hand over them, feeling the power thrum under his grip, vibrating in his ribcage and focusing all his anger where it couldn’t harm anyone. He felt the magic built until he had to grind his teeth to keep it contained and could keep it inside no longer.

He expected the pitcher to break apart violently or explode beneath his hands, to cover his bed in shards, but to his surprise it did nothing of the sort – instead it glowed in the red of his blood for the space of a thought before turning to dust. The fine, dark particles coated his hands and his blanket, but otherwise there was no trace that there had ever been a pitcher in the room in the first place. Bucky swallowed, trying to wrap his thoughts around what had just happened.

He realized that most of his rage was gone too, as if it had vanished into thin air together with the pitcher. It was frightening and relieving all at once. He was still trying to work out what exactly had caused the pitcher to disappear instead of making it explode, like things usually did when he touched them with his magic, when the door to his room opened again.

“Have you calmed down?” Peggy stared at him from across the room.

Bucky glanced meaningfully down at his lap where the dark dust was still coating the sheets. His hands opened and closed a few times before he plucked up the courage to meet Peggy’s gaze.

“I have. I think,” he said.

“Good.” Peggy came closer, pulling up a chair next to his bed to sit down in. She was as direct as always when she spoke again. “You need to talk to Steve.”

“I just did. You heard how it ended.”

“Yes. Yes I did, with you being an angry ass whose very real worries Steve often likes to pretend don’t exist.”

Bucky opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to Peggy’s frighteningly accurate assessment of the situation.

“I know I overreacted,” he finally said. “I was hurt and angry and…my mouth does stupid things when I’m like that. But…” His voice grew quieter, and he almost had to force himself to speak the words.

“…but Steve never acknowledges that even those who knew him before the serum might see him differently now,” Peggy completed the sentence for him. “He doesn’t think that the Bucky he grew up with might not look at him the same way now.”

“What should I tell him? I cannot-“ Bucky took a deep breath and tried again. “Whatever I say, it all ends up sounding angry and accusing and as if…as if I don’t care about _him_. When he and the Howling Commandos are the ones I care for most in this world besides my family. I just don’t know how to say things the right way.”

Peggy sighed, shaking her head.

“Well, first you should apologise to him. And then you should tell him the exact thing you just told me. You and Steve aren’t the only ones who’ve had this argument, you know; I shouted something rather similar at his face only a few weeks ago.”

Sometimes Bucky forgot that Peggy had known Steve before the serum, too. Not for as long as he had, true, but enough to fall in love with him just as well.

“Do you see him differently now then, too?” he asked

“Of course. He has changed in more than just body shape, if he wants to admit it or not. He is still the same good man he always was at his core, but…you do not become a captain and successful leader of a unit like the Howling Commandos without doing and learning a thing or two. None of us are the same people we were when this war began.”

“No, we certainly aren’t,” Bucky agreed, looking down at the dark dust in his lap. “How did you resolve the argument with him in the end?”

“We didn’t truly, I fear.” A shade of regret and something else, something darker, entered Peggy’s eyes. “He did not quite understand what I meant, and we agreed to talk again once the war was over, once we would have the time to…get to know each other properly, outside of our mutual obligations. He was excited for me to ‘get to know the real Buck, the one I grew up with’, he said.”

Bucky coughed a bitter laugh.

“That Bucky is dead, I fear.”

Instead of a reply Peggy reached out and, when Bucky didn’t withdraw after a moment, grasped his hand.

“I am still looking forward to getting to know you outside the war,” she said gently. Bucky squeezed her fingers, just ever so slightly, marveling at the strength contained in her grip.

“Me too,” he replied after taking a deep breath. “Maybe we can all learn each other anew. Figure out who we are now together. Would be nice.” He thought again of the picture of an idyllic life together which Steve’s words had painted not so long ago.

“It would,” Peggy said with that smile of hers that must have had everybody falling for her wherever she went. She wrapped her fingers around his in a short moment of shared comfort before she withdrew again and sighed. Brushing the folds out of her uniform, she stood up and headed towards the door.

“I wish I could heal you fully.” Her voice was quivering with regret. “But it seems that strengthening flesh and bone alone is not enough. Although at least it did keep you from dying.”

“You-“ But before Bucky could even thank her, she had left the room already, leaving him open mouthed and trying to sort through the information he had just received. He hadn’t known that Peggy had saved his life, hadn’t even known that she could - but of course she could. If her magic let her strengthen whatever she touched, it could keep perhaps keep wounds from bleeding out and tissue from receiving further damage. He should have thought of that.

Her touch on his skin seemed to linger, carrying with it the promise of, perhaps, a better tomorrow.

*

His next meeting with Steve was terse and uncomfortable. It made Bucky ache to see him so withdrawn, but he didn’t know how to bridge the abyss between them save with an attempt at an apology. If only words weren’t so hard.

Steve smiled nervously in his direction as Bucky stuttered out the words, about how much he regretted what he had said and _how_ he had said it.

“Well, I’m sorry to have made you feel cornered,” Steve said sheepishly. “I didn’t want to make it seem like I didn’t trust you. I just…I couldn’t _bear_ to lose you. Not now, not ever. And maybe, if I’m around, it’ll be easier for both of us. After all, Peggy told me in no uncertain terms that I could apparently use some looking after myself…”

Bucky reached out when Steve’s voice trailed off and rested his fingers lightly on his arm. He didn’t dare do more than that, not with an important meeting about to begin just one door away from them, but he put everything he could think of into the touch.

Steve just looked at him, and his answering gaze was everything that Bucky needed to know, at least for now. He wished he could have kissed him.

“I’ll look after you too, then,” Bucky promised with a slightly lopsided smile. It made Steve laugh. They both knew that a few quick words would not solve everything that had amassed between them and that it would take time, patience and serious effort to work everything out. But they were at war, and there was no time for such talks – they would work it out once peace had returned, Bucky promised himself. It couldn’t take that much longer, could it?

“The meeting is about to start.” Steve sighed quietly as he looked down at his watch. “You ready?”

“Sure.” Bucky rolled his shoulders and dug his hands into the pockets of his uniform pants. Steve nodded and knocked on the door. This was the first meeting Bucky would attend since he had been shot; little, however, had changed in the meantime. Everyone was still wearing the same serious faces, and although the war had progressed and the lines had changed, there was still as much to do as ever to help its end along.

Their mission briefing was long and detailed. Phillips grilled them again and again until he was satisfied that they all remembered the specifics of the plan. Timing would be crucial with this one and even a minute could make the difference between success and failure. Normally this plan would have been too dangerous even for the Howlies to be approved, but their goal in this case was vital – to capture Zola and put an end at least to the horrors of Hydra that _he_ had been responsible for.

Bucky honestly didn’t know what he would do once he had to face Zola again. He told himself that he would remain calm and superior, show the man that he _hadn’t_ broken him like he had wanted to, but somewhere inside himself he knew that it was a lie. He wasn’t even sure that he would be able to keep himself from killing Zola right then and there and become the exact creature of his own nightmares that he had always been so afraid of.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Bucky looked up to see Phillips staring at him, frowning slightly.

“Sir?”

“Are you listening?” Phillips gaze seemed to drill into his skull, and Bucky had to clench his hands into a fist to keep himself from lashing out, so similar was it to the way that Zola had sometimes looked at him.

“Of course, sir. You were talking about what we should do once we capture Zola.”

“Yes.” Phillip’s eyes lingered on him for a while longer before he returned to the conversation. Bucky’s body was still thrumming with tension, and he had force himself to listen. “As I said, please make every effort to capture him alive and in good health. The information he has could prove vital to our efforts, and some of our spy reports indicate that he would not be too hard to convince to get talking.”

Steve’s eyes hardened, and Bucky could only imagine the things that he would do to Zola to ‘get him talking’. Bucky sincerely doubted that even the urge to uphold Captain America’s squeaky-clean public image would do anything to hold him back. And he was inclined to let Steve get his way – he might be Captain America’s right hand, the one who always did his dirty work, but in this instance he wasn’t sure he would truly be able to. Zola had always been a far more tangible fear for him compared to the untouchable evil of the Red Skull. Bucky wondered how Phillips was ever going to try and keep Steve away from Zola.

They went over the complete plan one more time before Phillips was satisfied. Peggy was frowning next to him, but didn’t voice the objections she obviously had; she knew as well as everyone else how important Zola’s capture was. She did, however, wordlessly pull Steve into a kiss after the meeting and Bucky into an almost desperate hug.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” she murmured. Steve rolled his shoulders a little, not quite daring to meet her eyes.

“It’s the biggest chance we’ll get in the near future to really deal a blow to Hydra,” Steve said. “Even if it’s risky, the end result, if we’re successful, will be very much worth it.”

“I know, I know.” Peggy sighed. “If I could at least come with you…”

But of course they all knew that she couldn’t. Not for lack of any of them wanting her to, no – but Phillips would not have allowed it, and anyway, Peggy and her many talents were needed elsewhere in the coming week.

And so they set out later that evening after explaining the detailed plan to the rest of the Howling Commandos and receiving more than a few incredulous looks for it.

“Well, ‘no risk, no reward’ is what they say isn’t it,” Morita sighed and everyone nodded.

And that was that.

*

The air felt icy so far up in the mountain, cutting like knives when Bucky took another deep breath. Next to him Gabe was rubbing his hands, looking thoroughly unhappy. Steve seemed to be the only one impervious to the cold, and Bucky couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous. Although his jealousy mostly dissipated when he thought of the previous night when they had slept curled around each other, Steve warm as a furnace. If he concentrated for long enough, Bucky could still feel an echo of that warmth inside his stomach. He held on to the feeling as they climbed even higher, inching along the icy cliffs and trying not to slip on the surface. More than once Bucky surreptitiously used his magic when Steve wasn’t looking to free the rocks from the puddles of ice that had formed on them.

“Here we are,” Steve finally announced and pointed at the little ledge in front of them. The Howling Commandos exchanged frowns with each other – exposed as it was, with the wind blowing flurries of snow all around them, they wouldn’t be able to stay here for long before they started freezing to death. Morita shrugged and began to set up their communications unit with Gabe’s help. Bucky caught his glance and grabbed Steve’s arm to talk to him; in this weather Morita would need more than just a little of his magic to make the communications work.

Thankfully, luck seemed to be with them on this day – it didn’t take long for Morita and Gabe to report that the train was on its way and did indeed have Zola on board. Bucky felt a flutter of worry in his stomach; their time window to reach the train was incredibly tight. Only a few seconds of miscalculation and they would land on deserted train tracks at best or smash into some rocks, the train, or fall into the abyss itself at the worst. Bucky shuddered when he looked down; it was a steep valley, and the ground was barely visible in the snowstorm.

Dernier gave the signal; Bucky, Steve and Gabe left in perfect intervals, landing on the train as if they had practiced it before. If he had been alone, Bucky would have almost been tempted to simply use his magic and derail the train, killing all its passengers – but Gabe and Steve were with him so it wasn’t an option. And they wanted Zola alive. He had to keep reminding himself – _they wanted Zola alive_. He would have stayed and covered Gabe’s and Steve’s backs to stay away from him, but as it was, Steve had made him promise to stay as close as possible.

The train seemed empty when he and Steve entered. It was a harrowing sort of emptiness, one that was charged with wrongness and seemed to bode ill for what was about to happen. Bucky gripped his rifle tightly; he and Peggy had made sure that the bullets inside were all filled with magic from both of them to make them as dangerous as possible.

When the door between them closed, his finger almost pulled the trigger before he could stop himself. Instead he whipped around, instincts lightning-fast as he fired at the shadow he could see moving in the darkness of the train carriage.

There was a loud bang coming from Steve’s carriage but there was no time to look; there were at least two opponents with him in this room, and it took all his concentration not to get hit by either one. Bucky touched the large shelf in the middle with his blood and made it crumple, giving him one good shot to down the first of the two. He could feel his magic reverberating through his body, an echo of the deadly havoc it wrought, ripping through Hydra armor and body alike.

The second was harder.

His rifle jammed, and he cursed. He should have taken his own modified sniper rifle instead of relying on a standard weapon because it was better for close combat. Drawing his pistol he prayed there would be enough shots left to deal with the second one. The armor the soldiers wore was so thick that standard bullets wouldn’t even have begun to penetrate it; even with Peggy’s reinforcements and his destructiveness filling them, he still had to aim for the thinner parts.

The Hydra soldier wisely kept away from any structures Bucky could reach, having learned from his companion’s demise. Bucky’s pistol clicked empty. He had no more magazines for it; he had been relying on his rifle. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Bucky leaned back against the wall, hoping the big set of cases he was behind would hide him from view. He pressed his bloody hand against them, thinking of making them explode and giving himself enough time to somehow touch the Hydra Soldier to kill him; it was the only way out he saw.

 

 

His heart was beating in his throat as he willed his fingers to be still. A heavy step on the metal floor coming towards him. Another one. And another one. He couldn’t risk looking, would have to guess when the goon was close enough. A trickle of cold sweat ran down his brow, and he swallowed. A few more steps and he would do it.

The door next to him opened, and he looked up to see Steve – unharmed, alive, a pinch of worry in his face – gesturing at him. Bucky caught the gun he threw at him, made the boxes in front of him burst open with his magic and jumped up to shoot, barely taking the time to take proper aim. Thankfully, he and Peggy had switched out Steve’s magazines with some bullets of their own making. The full assault was enough to make the soldier go down with a gargled scream, and Bucky took a deep breath as he lowered his arm again.

A hand dropped on his shoulder, and he turned to see Steve giving him a tight smile. _Good thing I kept you close_ , it seemed to say.

“I had him on the ropes,” Bucky told him, perfectly aware that he was sounding slightly insulted.

“I know you did.” Steve patted his shoulder and smiled. With anyone other than Steve it would have seemed patronizing, but in Steve’s case…he simply seemed glad to still have Bucky alive. Which Bucky could barely fault him for.

He was about to say something in reply when he heard a sound behind them as if something was being charged.

“Get down!” Steve yelled as he pushed Bucky behind them to protect them both with his shield.

The next thing he knew was that he found himself lying on the floor, right next to Steve’s shield, with the gun still in hand. A quick glance showed him Steve lying on his side not too far away, but there was little time he could spare for the worry shooting through his chest. There were heavy steps coming towards them, and whoever they belonged to, they weren’t friendly.

His movements were almost automatic when he grabbed the shield and held it close to protect himself, shooting with his other arm. The recoil went through him like claps of thunder but he barely felt it in his concentration to hit anything, _anything_ on the giant armored creature in front of him. His bullets dug their way into the soldier’s (if he even was human) armor where they left deep dents as they exploded, but nothing seemed to deter it from reloading and shooting at him again.

Bucky could have stepped to side and out of the way of the next blast. He could have thrown the shield with his blood on it in one last, desperate attempt to kill his opponent.

And perhaps he might have even saved himself.

In one last moment of sheer clarity, however, he knew that none of these things would have worked, and so he kept firing as he thought of Steve lying to the side, Gabe somewhere on the train, the rest of the Howlies somewhere out there and his sister hopefully safely at home. He kept firing, wishing with all the might in his body that he would be granted one miracle, just one.

He went flying as the blast impacted the shield, and it was ripped from his hands as he sailed through the air, smashing into the open door, almost falling from the train. Scrabbling for purchase his hands held on to a small metal railing on the side that was creaking dangerously every time he moved.

His breath came in panicked pants and his mind refused to think anything beyond that he had to hold on, he had to get back inside- but the metal was cold, oh so cold, and he could barely move. All he knew was that he didn’t want to die like this.

“Bucky!” Steve’s yelling cut through the air, and there he was, slowly inching outwards on the door, hands outstretched in his direction. His lifeline, his savior, so close and yet…Bucky made a desperate attempt to move closer, wishing he had Peggy’s magic to strengthen whatever he was holding on to. But he didn’t; just when he thought he could grasp Steve’s fingers, the railing under his hands gave way, plunging him into the depths below.

Steve’s scream intermixed with his own as he was plummeting, the howling of the wind stealing the last of his breath away.

Bucky was falling, falling, _falling_ and the last thing he thought was:

 _Please let it be quick_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who came along for this ride and also once again to Lorien for her beautiful beautiful artwork. I'm planning more parts in this universe, although no idea when they'll be out yet, perhaps for next year's big bang? Who knows :').


End file.
